On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

So after first coming up with the un-original idea to do this sometime back in February I think, I have booked everything up with a 60:40 split in Camping/B&B stop overs (that means I’m camping more) and in a month’s time to the day I will be pretty much half way through.

I will be starting in Winchester (after getting the train there) and shall have a bit of a wander around. It’s somewhere I have never really been to look around as usually I come off at the Spitfire Link to pick up the A272 which is just a fab drive, also avoiding the heinous M3.

After that (and it will be early, I need to get on my way by 11am at the very latest) I will leave Winchester and have to make the trip across St. Catherine’s Hill and Twyford Down which I’m not exactly looking forward to. After that it’s pretty much out into the wilds, thankfully there are only really four major roads to get past after that (A3, A24, A23 and A27 in that order.)

The Route

• Saturday 26th July: Winchester to Exton (Hampshire) – 12 miles
• Sunday 27th July: Exton to South Harting (West Sussex) – 16½ miles
• Monday 28th July: South Harting to Gumber Bothy (nr. Bury and Bignor) – 16 miles
• Tuesday 29th July: Gumber Bothy to Washington (a mere 10 miles or so from home in Worthing…) – 12½ miles
• Wednesday 30th July: Washington to Pyecombe – 15 miles
• Thursday 31st July: Pyecombe to Rodmell (East Sussex) – 14 miles
• Friday 1st August: Rodmell to Alfriston – 8 miles
• Saturday 2nd August: Alfriston to Beachy Head/Eastbourne – 12½ miles

So that’s three counties to cross, and I have just about managed to wing it so I don’t get too close to Worthing but still managing to not add too much mileage on.

The easiest day as such is the Rodmell (south of Lewes) to Alfriston section. Two reasons, one is that Virginia Woolf’s last house was in Rodmell and is a National Trust venue which I fully intend on spending some time at to say the least (I’ve never been, queer as that sounds given she is one of my favourite authors who lived ‘down the road’ — well, 25 miles away…) and secondly Alfriston, whilst overrun by tourists (which is fine) is a very nice place, I quite intend on sitting on the green and I’m sure I’ll be contemplating how on earth have I just walked 90-odd miles

Really it’s not that difficult as I often walk 25 miles in a weekend easily, and that’s with me lumbering out of the flat at 12-1pm in the afternoon! I also hope to leave Washington early enough to get up to Chanctonbury Ring so catch the sun lifting itself over the horizon.

This is all assuming it doesn’t hammer it down (rain.) I’ve not really considered that as a major part of the week to be honest, my expectation is that it’ll be good enough weather.

Other Things

All I have left to do now is to get the last few bits I will need for the walk such as possibly a new pair of walking boots which I will need to get very soon to break them in, I also need a new thermos flask. But apart from that I’m ready to rock. I also need plenty of film as I plan on (how could I not) photographing the walk more or less entirely in black and white for a photo-book I hope to compile on my return. I will shoot a couple of rolls of Velvia otherwise I can picture it now, mum saying — oh no, how could you take holiday photos in black & white. My answer is: very easily.

I’m really super hyped about this now, it’s going to be an utterly brilliant experience even though I have walked good doses of it already but never all in one go, or even to do an over-nighter, it’s usually been 6-8 miles of it and then looping back to the car/flat via some other route.

Aside from the evident geeky side of myself, I generally occupy my spare time worrying about getting things right in my work (well I don’t worry too badly but I do care about the work I do) and enjoying the outdoors.

I recently saved my pennies together (well have done since the start of the year) and got myself a lens I have been eager to get my hands on for well, a very long time. Nothing outrageous like a shoulder mounted rocket launcher-esque 400mm f/2.8L… It’s a 70-200mm f/4L. I’ve been getting very good use of my EOS 3 since the start of the year (when I got it to replace the defunct EOS 5) and it was about time that I got a telephoto zoom with the kinds of things I enjoy shooting when out walking. And that leads nicely on to the South Downs Trail.

I do a lot of walking, except this weekend where I am just about too tired to do too much (although I still hopped on the train into Brighton earlier and then went to Focus and Sainsburts… Fairly busy minus falling asleep in the chair at 3pm — I was dead beat last Sunday after my 15 mile walk out of Worthing up to Long Furlong and back down again last Sunday on top of my circular jaunt from Arundel via Slindon on Saturday) so I have started to really get my head together over my holiday this year:

Walking the entire South Downs Trail, weighing in at a shade over 100 miles. Why?

I love the outdoors. The South East is under such pressure from all directions and hell I’m going to make the most of this beautiful area before this country really fucking does loose the plot and starts wrecking anything of natural significance.

I might also do it as a sponsored thing but we will see. My motivation isn’t to do it for charity, i.e. I wasn’t looking to do something for charity when deciding on doing this, it’s my own personal thing but if I can help someone on the way, might be an idea.

I’ll be starting in Winchester and have been reading a book on the trail + route and also looking at things on-line. One thing that has bugged me is the bit out of Winchester, how the hell do you get over the M3. That’s a sore point for me as to this day I have never driven Twyford Down out of protest of what they did to that historic site and worked out from photos there is a bridge over the socking giant cutting they drove right through the historic landscape. Seriously got upset looking at it and I was only 11 when they started building it so I wasn’t a protester at the time but I would have been. (Plus I would have inextricably been linked to rave culture, glow sticks, et al. Dreadlocks too I s’pose…. hehe)

St. Catherine’s Hill, Winchester. (Note the stupid fucking M3 to the north….!)
Courtesy of David Quick on Flickr.com

I’ve worked out that I could in fact probably do it in five days (20 miles average a day) but I’d probably not enjoy it so much and since I haven’t had much chance to enjoy the western part of the downs (I know this end like the back of my hand) around Winchester through to around Rogate (beautiful place, on the charming A272 – the kind of thing a road should be, unobtrusive, quiet, winding, complimenting to the landscape and a sheer pleasure to drive along) so I am average 15 miles a day on three of the seven I am planning to take.

I just now need to decide when to go, it could be any time between mid-July through to the end of August except for the middle when I’m off to V festival again this year.

I cannot wait though, it will be a lot of fun and I hope the weather is reasonable too (not too hot mind, preferably no rain either!) The only down side is the bit where the South Downs Trail crosses the A24 south of Washington which is probably about 8 miles or so tops from Worthing, where I live… Hopefully I’ll be able to forget all about it being my back yard then. I’m sure having walked from Winchester to Washington I’ll be pretty much on a high, let alone arriving in Eastbourne having travelled 100 miles by foot with no assistance from horse, bicycle or motorised vehicle. How liberating that will be!

I swear given my allotment I’m so ready for the post-oil age