Dawn and the Pieman Do The South Downs Part Three

Our (relatively) high camp, of course, meant that we were up fairly high for the Sunday morning start. We bagged Firle Beacon easily and early in the day, after which the Way swings South-east to coast down into Alfriston – the first place with a choice of shops and pubs and fairly expensive tea rooms. We raided the deli for bread and beef and juice and bananas and scoffed these in a shady picnic beside the laughingly called Cuckmere River as the church bells called the faithful away from Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs – the Cuckmere at this point, being tidal, but not much more than a muddy festering beck.

The walk follows the river downstream before heading off into the woods of Exceat and into the Seven Sisters Country park, with it’s toilets, tap and ice-cream van (where we enjoyed a lolly). Here, it was as crowded as a seaside place gets on a summer Sunday. Everywhere there were kids and dogs and a steady stream of humanity was heading for the beach. I think maybe we were a bit out of place here….

A path leads to the sea and takes the South Downs wayfarer up onto the rolling seven Sisters – with white cliffs on one side and rolling Downs on the other, this feels like a Lake District ridge – one steep climb followed by another steep descent and so on and so on for a long way – exhausting on a such a hot day.

There is relief to be had at Birling Gap – relief in the form of flat but refreshing beer before the final effort over Beachy Head and down into Eastbourne. We had finished the South Downs Way but yet there was work to be done. I needed cash. We had beds booked at the YHA. Dawn’s map showed the location of the YHA.

The cash machine at the co-op wasn’t working and they would only give me twenty quid cash back. Meantime, whilst I was negotiating in the Co-op, Dawn had recruited the assistance of a man with a basket of beans and raspberries to take us to the YHA. He lead us through a maze of suburban streets, remarking on the excellence of the local school cricket pitch and pontificating about the “YMCA”, which worried dawn a bit, I think and ultimately dumped us at the foot of a steep path up onto the Downs. His directions were incredible and just didn’t seem right and, what was more, didn’t match Dawn’s Harveys map. I snatched the map and navigated us at a stagger to the location of the YHA as given on the map. The YHA wasn’t there…Bugger.

Dawn’s email booking confirmation revealed an address on the far side of the Downs. The old chap had been right. We retraced and drew our final dregs of energy on the climb up to the Downs and over the top where the YHA really was.

On the Sunday, we’d done 20 miles and 3400 feet of uphill. This is a lot with a big pack on a steaming hot day (although Beachy Head had been windy and damp and it was now raining a bit)

Altogether, we’d done 108 miles. I don’t think anybody just does the advertised 100 since most accommodation etc is off-route. Its a good route, though, and quite beautiful if a bit , hesitate to say it… its a bit like a Real Turmat Reindeer curry – its very nice, but it’s all the same nice till you get to the coast, which is a welcome change.  And it’s tough for campers – scarce water, hard on the feet and so on – it would be quite a good training for the TGO challenge I think.

Overall, I’m glad to have done this. Me and Dawn don’t seem to be having duff trips. The hot weather got to be a bit of a challenge by each afternoon when it started to become uncomfortable. If there’d been anything to make us fail, it would probably have been the heat.

I feel a bit smug about it now, though. 

 

Dawn and the Pieman Do The South Downs Part Two

Thursday was hot! (bit of a theme developing here, you might think….)

We bashed on. The target for today was Washington where there was a campsite and , as Dawn pointed out, a safe crossing of the A24, a murderously fast dual carriageway with no footbridge.

We rejoined the long scarp and, happily for the sunburn, much of the day was spent under the cover of trees. A short diversion bagged Glatting Beacon, a trig point in a deep plantation next to antennae.

And then we descended to Amberley Station – just four of your earth metres above sea level. This sad fact (we’d have to make up the height again) was relieved somewhat by the existence of a pub on the route at this point. We had butties and chips. (They were posh butties, but not very posh chips) The heat of the day grew quite intense. We bashed on through the contours to Rackham hill at 193 metres and Kithurst Hill where Dawn waited for me to bag the trig and then, after 19 miles, down the hill into Washington where the campsite was on the other side of the village, too far from the pub, but where we got a discount for looking exhausted.

Another wet and dewy night was followed by a bright blue Friday of more heat. We had to go back up the hill again. There were rewards here, though. We hadn’t a fixed target, except to say that there was a pub at Devil’s Dyke, and that we’d go some way beyond that.

In between we came across Chanctonbury Hill. This has a trig point and a small hillfort, the bounds of which hold a plantation of trees, mainly planted after a storm in 1987 destroyed the 18th century plantation that preceded it. The ring of the outer defences and the copse of trees, and the extensive and beautiful views makes this an enchanted place; just the sort of place to spend a night. We couldn’t have attempted this the night before, though, unfortunately. We just didn’t have enough energy to carry water way up here. Another time, though, perhaps.

After this the Way descends to the River Ardur, more or less at sea level again, before climbing, now in baking heat back to the scarp which continues past the tap at Truleigh and along the rolling ridge to the oasis that is Devil’s Dyke. Here was more beer and crunchy fish sandwiches and a descent to Saddlescombe where we stopped for a cuppa and where I noticed a National Trust sign on a fence had a picture of a tent on it. Dawn enquired (I leave all such business as enquiring to Dawn as she doesn’t seem to mind the prospect of rejection, something which I find a bit more difficult to do for some reason. Enquiries revealed a field with a tap and the location of some fairly posh toilets, and an honesty box for the depositing of ten quid for the camping. 14 miles today.

If the next day was Saturday, it was going to be a hot one. We had decided to have a wild camp. We knew where the taps were and we had a rough idea of our spot. It would be a long day.

We marched on once again towards the East, passing over West Hill and the A23 at Pyecombe, rejoining the scarp with the view for Ditchling Beacon, turning South at Blackcap to Housedean where we bravely ignored the campsite, tea van, petrol station and pub in favour of another uphill struggle over the Downs to Southease where there was another tap and, where we crossed from the Western hemisphere into the Eastern hemisphere. After this effort, we rested and drank the water. There was some kind of open day at the church. A village lady had her little dog, the ugliest little pooch you’ve ever seen with an overlapping bottom jaw and bulging eyes. I had a little chat with the dog and we got on quite well. This was Ollie. The lady’s relief from guarding the church gate, a young woman in a very naughty frock, called Ollie “The Gruffalo”  A bit unfair. I took to the dog. Poor old Ollie. We collected water from the Southease tap.

We crossed the River Ouse, once more, quite near sea level and struggled up the steep hill back onto the Downs. On the edge of the Downs, overlooking Southease, on the border of a copse of hawthorn, we put the tents up and had a fabulous wild camp on a warm and breezy moonlit and starry night.

If you follow the vapour trails, you end up at Gatwick.

Dawn and the Pieman Do The South Downs Part One

This had been planned for a while, although the actual plans had a light touch – that is to say, we had little idea of how far we would walk or where we would sleep at night, except at the mysteriously hidden Youth Hostel at the end in Eastbourne. Dawn, though, had a list of campsites and hostels and things and our maps had the location of strategically placed and important water taps.

So, as planned, Dawn was at King’s Cross station last Monday and I followed her through tunnels and moving stairways and rattling tube trains amongst a ghostly population unable to meet a gaze – to Waterloo where a long wait eventually lead to an hour or so’s train ride to Winchester where King Alfred stood on his plinth and you have to pay to go into the main church for a pray, if that’s what you want to do….

We navigated ourselves out of the town in hot sun. We crossed a motorway into the wide and open spaces of The Downs, baking in heat and hard on the feet.

We covered ten miles or so on the Monday, trying a listed farm camp at Holden, at which there was nobody, and, speculatively in the car park of a pub with a paddock, at which there was nobody either. Dawn resolved the matter by knocking on a door. A chap, self-confessed train buff pointed to a patch of grass and a tap and both of these facilities were ours for the night – dry night amongst the trees in snaily grass and heavy dew, and a lot of off-road traffic.

In the morning we headed East. We weren’t perhaps, quite into the swing of things yet. Tuesday was hot and cloudless and the land is dry and hard and we bashed along as far as we could over Beacon Hill, Old Winchester hill, followed by a short break at the fishing ponds at Whitewool, where coffee and cakes and beer was had – and then over Whether Down– to eventually turn up at the site of HMS Mercury – now some kind of park with a hostel and a campsite with showers that worked (very effectively) off the sun and a composting toilet in a shed which was much better than it sounds. Two rats were seen to escape from a mound and make a dash across open space. The wind blew a hoolie during the night, but not a breeze ruffled the tents. A cold, dewy night gave way to another steamer of a day.

HMS Mercury was a Royal navy shore establishment dedicated to training and developing navigation and communications but is now closed and little seems to remain apart from a lot of razor wire…

Wednesday was hot! We had divided the rest of the distance remaining of the SDW into the number of available days and come up with the hard fact that we had to average around 17 miles a day to finish and catch the 09:55 train to Victoria on Monday morning. Dawn announced that Manor farm at Cocking was the place to go, so that’s where we headed.

In between, we bagged Butster Hill, a slightly off-route Marilyn, covered in dog walkers,  had bacon butties at the Queen Elizabeth Country park, visited another Beacon Hill and traversed a long escarpment with big views to the North, bagged Linch Down and, as we eventually slumped sweatily by the public tap at Hill Barn, Dawn noticed that we were, in fact, at the very gates of a Manor Farm, although possibly not the manor farm we’d been heading towards. We were, in fact, filling up water bags for a wild camp further up the hill. But we’d had enough. We’d done 17 miles.  Enquiries revealed that there was a tap and a paddock and that we could camp for a fiver. This was the second time that Dawn’s enquiries had produced a result.

Yet again, the sky for the night was clear and there was a heavy and wetting dew.

 

Two Different Places on the South Downs Way

This is a picture of Chanctonbury Rings – an iron age/roman age hillfort with 18th century and modern plantations of trees. This is a beautiful and magical place which would be a delight for an overnight in high summer; perhaps on a summer solstice night. And, maybe frosty cold night in midwinter could be more than beautiful here.  We passed this way a few days ago. This seems to be a happy place and a positive place where good times can be had; a place for celebration and love and dancing and flowers and intoxication and joy.

 

And then, a few days later, we walked over Beachy Head. Here, there were crosses and flowers and Christian messages which those in absolute despair will doubtfully read. I was quickly repelled from the summit of this hill by the utter gutteral sadness of the place . My pictures of the top with it’s crosses and flowers have failed to be recorded.  It’s a place that is occupied and haunted by a formless black dog. This animal hounds it’s victims remorselessly from far and wide, possessing minds and causing nothing at all but pain to the people who are lead to believe that there is nothing, but nothing left for them except the relief of death  by leaning forwards, in final desperation,in to thin air. And to their families and friends who plant crosses and leave small messages of love, wishing they could, by just a word, have changed things or altered the outcome in some way.  And to the people who’s job is to to collect the damaged cadavers from the sea or the stony hard beach, far below; those who are damaged  slowly and slowly by the job they have to do. There is pure evil here. There is nothing good here just now. The only outcomes are death and lasting despair. There are ten or so yards of complete and powerful nastiness in a little circle around the top of the hill, hanging over a beetling crag of pure, soft, white. And everything just about to teeter off and shatter down into a shallow blue/green sea and move a little more inland.

The cwn annwm of Beachy Head would hate the dancing and the celebration of Chanctonbury.

More and better stuff on the South Downs Way with Dawn later……

A Pink Interval

There will now be another short interval - around eight days altogether whilst me and Dawn go and walk the Sahf Dahns Way.

Try to keep yourselves busy and don't let anybody into the house.

And don't forget to turn the bathroom tap off. It's expensive to leave it on like you did last time.

My train is at 4:27 in the morning as well, so don't make any noise tonight.

Here's a video with some specially unusual people in it. Innit?