Sunday
Sunday 27th July
I slept well throughout the night even though there was the incessant thrum of the fans in the farm’s barns which were drying out the recently harvested crop (probably wheat or barley.) Being under the canvas of a tent, more or less on your own is a fantastic experience particularly on a clear night like it was. Even trotting over to the barn (where the loo was) across the cool concrete track in the fresh navy night air was enlivening despite my fatigue.
The morning when I woke at 7am was already bright and warm and would only continue to be so throughout what was soon to be the hottest day of the year. I packed up the tent and chatted to the other girls who were also pitched up at the farm about their journeys. They were not going quite the full distance to Eastbourne but rather planned to do it in stages. At 9am with everything packed, water bottles full and my back bowing underneath the strain of my backpack I knocked on the owner’s door as he said to, so I could catch a lift down into Exton where I left off the night before. (Corhampton Lane Farm is about a mile and a half from Exton.) Stopping off at a small shop I picked up another bottle of water and an energy drink. Today was a total of nearly eighteen miles of walking from Exton to South Harting. Unbelievably by the second day I would have crossed East Hampshire and be back in the far corner of my home county, West Sussex.
After waving goodbye to the owner, I crossed the busy main road and headed towards Old Winchester Hill. Things started well enough following the map and guide but as I reached the edge of one field, it was not obvious where the trail went. It actually went through an unsigned gap in the trees that looked more like a break in a wire fence than a national trail! In between this backwards and forwards I met Richard and Mary. My misdemenour with where to go was fate’s way of probably making our acquaintances as they too were unsure. We got talking and they too were walking the distance to Eastbourne over the same Saturday to Saturday period. From this point onwards we would cross paths a number of times along the way forging a friendship that a well signed route may not have given us! Fate is a good thing even when it seems it’s a bad thing.
The climb up Old Winchester Hill was a long and hot one, the day was already burning my shoulders and neck and it was clear that this day would be controlled by the heat. The view once on top of Old Winchester Hill was magnificent, miles of clear glorious late-July views of the unfurling coastal plateau to the east, and south was the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth. A little further too dipping its toes into the Solent was the Isle of Wight — which is also a favourite of mine — the climb was as ever worth it.
Old Winchester Hill to Butser Hill
After a period of walking with Richard and Mary, I decided to press on a little and we parted company for the first time that day and I made my way down the steep path towards a quaint farm and fishing stop on the River Meon where a little cafe. Whilst it looked delightful offering the promise of cakes and coffee, I couldn’t stop. I still had a lot of mileage to cover and I needed to get as much as I could done before the burning hours of afternoon sun. The temperature was easily over eighty degrees by the late morning. As I walked on, I passed the first of many lovely little stalls set up this time outside a house and farm. A veritable delight of little snacks, cakes, condiments, fruits and conserves was placed in the almost mid-west American landscape. I bought some flapjack, popping the money in the honesty box and walked away brimming with a smile. There is kindness and warmth in this acerbic modern Britain we live in! What is there to fear when there are people out there who spend their days and spare hours putting together a few simple things using produce of the land and offer it up with no snarl or guarded eye. That’s pure heart and long may this bucolic identity of the English countryside continue.
The South Downs way up until around East Meon followed a ridge of sorts on the South Downs but not a deeply pronounced one where you are clearly walking along the escarpment. Aerial photography does show a ridge of sorts but its not too apparent on the ground. It’s only until you reach the crossroads for East Meon that you start a long, hard ascent up onto the true spine of the South Downs. A pronounced and steep chalk escarpment that stretches towards Eastbourne eighty-five miles away. Before I started the climb up the escarpment above East Meon where the HMS Mercury armed forces base is I rested well in the shade of the hedges. The sun was furiously hot and the last thing I needed was burnt shoulders on the second day of walking. After a rest of ten to fifteen minutes I began to make my way slowly up the steep slope. About half way up Richard and Mary caught up with me (I will say in my defence I had been lingering taking photographs and was carrying a heavier pack) and for a short distance I kept up with them but it was doing me no good to go at `it’ at the pace of those with lighter packs. It is quite amazing how the seemingly small additions of a tent, sleeping bag and some basic cooking equipment (the tent and sleeping bag being the lightest I could afford weighing in together at little more than five pounds) made a difference to the weight I was carrying. That said the tripod, twenty-odd rolls of film and three pound camera did have a bearing on things!
Once at the top of the slope I was a little disappointed as HMS Mercury was something of a blot on the landscape, blotting out what was presumably a fine view of the Meon valley but soon this was behind me and onwards I trekked towards Butser Hill. The promise (to myself) was that once I was on Butser I would make use of the refreshment facilities and eat there if there was anything decent. The views began to open up again with some woodland atop the southern fringe of the chalk downland giving small relief to my hot and flushed face. By the time I was walking the road up to Butser Hill the sun was at its peak and looking back I was grateful for the warmth and sheer feel of full summer but at the time it was hard going. I agreed before I started that the Downs were indeed fantastic to walk in winter and spring and now I can agree more with that, but to experience them in full summer was something I was glad to be experiencing. It’s worth noting that a bit of the East Hampshire sections of the South Downs Way does run along some very quiet — but motor traffic prone — country lanes that can be a bit distracting when you find yourself admiring a view from nowhere only to suddenly be coughing in the haze of a dust cloud kicked up by a family’s four wheel drive car!
Once at the top of Butser Hill, the highest point on the South Downs Way (narrowly beating Beacon Hill on Harting Down and Ditchling Beacon in East Sussex) I was soothed in the cool shade of the refreshment building with a strong blackberry ice cream and a bottle of water or two. I chatted for a while with an elderly couple who were asking where I was headed (“Eighty miles east!”) and the weight I was carrying (“A good forty, fifty pounds!”) It was already around 2.30pm and seeing as no proper food was on offer (though the Mars bar did help wash it all down!) I had to press on pretty quickly to the other side of the Queen Elizabeth Country Park. This is a dense area of natural woodland north of Portsmouth and Waterlooville. The only pity is that the steep and dramatic descent down the valley is interrupted by the main A3 road from London that is hewn into the valley-sides and as you get closer all you can hear is an incessant swooshing and the sound of tyres bouncing over the bridge/viaduct joints on the road. I have to admit though for all the inelegance of this modern `necessity’, I began to weep with joy that I had already made it, “to the A3!” It was quite a feeling, a rush that roughly, this was a half way marker between Winchester and Worthing. It felt incredibly liberating to know that really, the only reason I was walking down this steep escarpment slope towards this road, was because I had walked here. I had not caught a lift part of the way, I had not hopped on a bus or jumped on a train. I had walked this distance and it was apparent that grappling with the idea that when I finished my feet would have carried me a one-hundred miles was unqualifiedly rousing. Whilst some will scoff, “I have walked 300 miles in dire snow and torrential rain and slept in ten foot of mud!” I did feel rather good about this prospect, after all many people barely make it the quarter mile to the local shops without using the car, and that is a crying shame when this world could do with fewer cars on the road, if not for global warming’s sake but for a bit of peace on the road’s sake!
Once the other side of the A3 you pass through the visitors’ centre for Queen Elizabeth Country Park where aside from the number of people milling around (there is a large car park and this is relatively speaking an easy access point to the Downs) the great natural woodland reaching up the downland slope was welcome relief from the intense heat which at gone three o’ clock was still beating down hard. After a quick catch up with Richard and Mary (whom must have passed me whilst I rested in the shade at the top of Butser Hill) I made use of the facilities to have something else to eat and drunk a huge amount of water from the thankfully free to use water tap. (Ask at the restaurant, they will direct you where it is!)
According to my map the ascent up through the country park to the road at the top of the Downs escarpment it would be a long and hard slog. Sometimes however you can focus too much on what the map is telling you and not take things as they come, but almost when the feet and shoulders are tired you begin to dread what is coming rather than look forward to it. As it happens the climb was rather wonderful, with green light filtered down from the tree canopy above and a relatively gentle climb (although a long one) back up the escarpment slope towards the top where you meet a crossroads for Buriton at the top.
By this time I was quite worn out, it was only about two miles to South Harting but the heat had taken it out of me and despite being relatively fit, I was wishing my staging post for the night was Buriton! Pressing onwards through to South Harting which is only just over the Hampshire/West Sussex border, it was some of the most beautiful countryside I had come across yet. Apart from a major part of the National Grid crossing the South Downs Way it was very pretty. Along this part of the Way the path is relatively leafy and green as evening began to draw in covering everything with the wonderful warm orange evening light of Summer, it was the perfect end to a fantastic day of walking. I took breaks regularly at this point (probably every half an hour) to ensure I wasn’t getting dehydrated.
At this point I was wishing I didn’t have to have such a heavy camera as my Canon EOS 3 (which with the lens was weighing in at nearly 3lbs) and in part this is the reason I got the Leica so I wouldn’t miss some of the photos I was too tired to take at the end of the day. Suffice to say I shall return to the South Downs Way to tackle it in one week again soon and I will get those photos.
At the top of the escarpment when I met the road down to South Harting I phoned the B&B I was staying at (insert name) to call and say I had made it but I was going to eat first and then walk to them.
After making my way down (which was hard enough in itself) I got myself into the White Hart Inn, ordered a beer and some food. Sitting down in the quiet little pub garden, it was perfect. Everything that is so right and honest about this country was in that garden that night, warm air, the trickle of a fountain, the twitter of birds settling down for the night and the sweet aroma of flowers in the beds. I had already covered 30 miles and crossed into West Sussex from Hampshire. Some people manage to climb K2, some people trek the Andes, other people cross an English County border and even though compared to the mammoth achievement of many adventures, it felt good. I guess some people don’t ever have their little adventure because television, the Internet and newspapers laud the massive (and well deserved) acheivement of people who rise to a challenge in a far off land and just do it. Well why can’t we do that in our own country rather than wishing for that ‘One day.’
Because one day may never come, and often never does.
Alas, serious philosophical musings over, the food was fantastic. After finishing up (and I could not finish all of it) — I made my way through the quaint and delightfully clichéd English village of South Harting. At the B&B, I met David and Joyce and enjoyed a glass of wine, watched the sun set and whilst I would have enjoyed sitting out for longer, I knew I needed and early start for another 16 miles of walking the following day.
Sometimes in life the best things don’t come easy, and in my book, they can’t be bought. My day walking from Exton to South Harting had brought two new friends into my life, and some of the best walking I have ever experienced on the South Downs…
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