The Bewilderness

Have walked the Essex Way

Having commenced the Essex Way at the beginning of the year, I managed to complete it by the end of the calendar on one of the shortest days of 2013. The path meanders through the prettier parts of Central and northern Essex avoiding the conurbations of the Estuary, Chelmsford and Colchester.

The final section of the Essex Way is one of the prettiest parts of the walk and follows the coast of the River Stour's estuary. Starting out at dawn on a winter's day gives wonderful rose-tinted views of the river looking towards the northern shore. Only later on in the walk does the horizon become marred by the ports at Felixstowe and Harwich.

The best villages are the earliest: Manningtree (home of the Witchfinder General: Matthew Hopkins) and Mistley. The winding streets of Manningtree transport you back to the seventeenth century but before you get there, you have to walk through twentieth century housing estates, a railway line and older Victorian rows. It is an exercise in time travel across a mile and a half.

The land rises steeply from the banks of the Stour and you leave Mistley via the Mill, under the railway line and onto a series of muddy fields before entering the next village: Bradfield. And that becomes the walk: villages as milestones. All with their collection of churches and waymarkers: Bradfield, Wrabness, Ramsey and Little Oakley (the last is little more than an estate masking a suburb of Harwich). With such ascents come some good views over the peninsula: Janus with the Stour to the north and Clacton to the south.

What makes the walk is the final variation on the themes of Essex. Once you walk down the hill from Little Oakley you enter a world of marsh and drainage ditches. The path turns north along a dyke towards Harwich. The view south is palette of light and beige in the winter, but the downside is that the view is behind you. I got to see the port and a caravan park, not so wonderful. When you leave the dyke behind, the final stretch is the Promenade alongside Dovercourt. With some bathing huts, one cafe and a (very small) amusement arcade, Harwich manages to claw back a relic of its resort days. But the redoubt is even worse and scores a tad more negatively than Newhaven. Nevertheless, at least the path ends at a tower with a sign rather than at a vandalised derelict railway station (like the Vanguard Way).

Essex is a pretty county to walk around and is recommended for adventures on the flat. This will not be my last long distance walk in that county.

  

The Greensand Way

The Greensand Way was completed this weekend. This is a long distance walk registered with the LDWA and clocks in at 108 miles, stretching from Ham Street south of Ashford and finishing in a Haslemere alleyway with a 'Limpsfield plaque'. It has taken most of the year to walk across the rolling hills of Kent and Surrey. 

The final section, walked yesterday, joins the Way south of Wonersh and follows the path in its meanderings west across fields and woodland. Surrey is a deceptive county south of the largest town. One assumes that, south of the downs, that the land will flatten. Yet, the path becomes much more undulating and can become difficult to navigate, especially in the Hurt Wood. During these stretches, there are some steep climbs that can tax the walker. Despite the low gradient, they are steep. 

There is a succession of small, delightful villages with an untouched, rural charm seen less as you get nearer to London. Hambledon, Wormley, Witley and Thursley all hold themselves keenly to the eye. 

Only the final part disappoints, when the path turns south on the final descent towards Haslemere through Hindhead Common. The track runs through woodland by Gibbet Hill and passes round the Devil's Punchbowl but omits much of the view or the best walks. They took the Punchbowl away and forest operations have also scarred the landscape at the moment. A pity. 

But another walk completed. 

 

Treading the Cape of Wrath

If you want to join up all of your walks in these islands, then the Cape Wrath trail is for you. The far north, 200 miles of rough terrain and starts out from Fort William. It follows through some of the most isolated parts of the United Kingdom and (this is teh beauty) cannot join to anywhere else.

Next summer?

Walking out of the city

The London Loop is the a walk that meanders round the outskirts of the city exploring the rich spral of woodland and heath that is preserved within the boundaries of the suburbs. A rich opportunity for discovering the hidden gems within the Green Belt. It is a welcome and wilder contrast to the Capital Ring that I completed last winter: where green often equals playing fields and parks. Not that the London Loop does not pass through similar landscapes of municipal upkeep.

Yesterday was part of my catch-up. The path starts in Erith, a former village with vestiges of beauty situated on the south bank of the Thames. The path follows the industrial estates on the shore and turns southwards down the River Cray, a waterway that gives its name to many suburbs along the way: Crayford, St Paul's Cray, St Mary's Cray etc. Despite some small moments of delight such as the reed marshes east of Slade Green and the woodlands that insulate the walker from the surrounding city, streets, cars and dual carriageways soon intrude to remind you of the arteries and veins that criss-cross your path. There are many of these.

Yet, travelling southwards to Bromley, the woods become more open, the roads die away and the scenery becomes much prettier. Until, during the final stretch towards Hayes, one is in the countryside circling the village of Farnborough and the city is left behind. It only takes twenty miles to get out of it these days. 

I walked out of the city yesterday.

The Sussex Ouse Valley Way (an ODI)

The Sussex Ouse Valley Way is a 42 mile long distance walk that runs from Lower Beeding, a small roundabout south of Horsham (with pub attached) to the outskirts of Seaford (very near the station of Bishopstone (so empty that rabbits graze on the platforms). If one attempts to do this in a day, then the distance meets the criteria for a challenge walk (an echo of a conversation with Lev Babiev haunts here).

When one commences these walks, there are two directions to choose: from sea to source or vice versa. The official version is quite clear: start at Lower Beeding and proceed downhill. Undertaking this in late September when the light fails before the dark has some advantages. The route into Newhaven and Seaford runs along clear paths and mostly through lit towns: not a bloody forest (where the chances of getting lost rise significantly!). Yet, taken in a more philosophic sense: the source is the primary goal of any quest. You are walking up the river to discover something. This discovery contrasts with the less exciting goal of arriving at the sea. Arrival is a goal but doesn't quite embody the same promise. (The whole debate for this path is somewhat academic as the Ouse appears to vanish some fifteen miles before the end, though the source is listed as Lower Beeding.

The walk is a pleasant meander through Sussex: mainly flat with ponderings on various hills, downs and woods, rending a pleasing variety of terrain and stiles. Though the stiles became more painful later on in the day. The website of the organisers tells it far better than myself.

A challenging and grulling one day, especially with the night hike section.

Leafmould and mud: autumn is here

The Greensand Way follows the southern ridges of the North Downs past Dorking. From that town, one would assume that the northern slopes (Box Hill) are the higher points. Yet, south-west is the second highest point in the south-east (I have already visited this controversy and it is definitely not a peak!): Leith Hill.  

My group walked from Holmwood to Shalford yesterday along well-appointed footpaths through the fields and woods of the Surrey Hills. Beautiful rolling landscape with fading greens as the year turns. Like most Surrey walks, views across the weald towards Sussex are worthwhile without the encumbrance of spectacular. Apart from the tower on Leith Hill, I found no singular note to distinguish this excursion. With the rain, the endless mist and dripping rain in the woodland, the walk connected again to the seasonal cycle and brought home how summer has gone and boots again will squelch through mud and leafmould. 

Leith Hill downgraded

There is some controversy as to whether Leith Hill is the tallest hill in the south-east (a nebulous region unless you take the European MEP constituency as your guide). Leith Hill is  974 feet tall and, through the artificial addition of a tower, can be said to rise above 1000 feet. However, Walbury Hill in Berkshire, is also 974 feet. This is either an even tie or some loose work. So, take a county top viewinstead and we find that Leith Hill is recorded as 968 feet, some six feet smaller than Walbury Hill. This may be a small and pedantic point, but even though Surrey is my county, I have to concede to the Berks on this one. And climb it too.

Never visited, always mist

It is an irony that Essex as a county improves when approaching its northern borders. The Villages become prettier; the paths more remote; and the claustrophic pressure of suburbia that suffocates its southern towns peters out. This could be called the 'London influence'. 

We have had a good summer. For walking in England, this translates as a lack of rain. Yesterday made up for that absence. We may stoically walk through the rain (and will be better prepared than a daytripper). And once it starts coming down, the rain is bearable if there is little wind and it is warm. Both of these conditions were fulfilled yesterday. Then eyes can lift and enjoy the joys of the English landscape in rain. Was it the enduring play of light and mist that allowed Constable to suffuse Suffolk onto canvas? 

Some countries may have spectacle and breathtaking scenery. So strange and different that even photos strike a poise. Yet, seek such uniqueness all the time and a modest mist arising with a church steeple rising above will be set aside, forever available at one's door. And as such: never visited, always mist.

An Essex Way

The Essex Way is a long distance path that traverses the county in a north-east direction from Epping to Harwich. The landscape is agricultural; field upon field upon field. The path follows old trackways or small verges alongside yellowing swathes of wheat that are yearning for their harvest one month hence. 

Essex is not completely flat. There may not be the elevation of the downs or hills further west but the landscape undulates: gentle ups and downs that provide views. The other joy of these walks is the traverse from one village to the next: small self-contained, neat and old. The hiker will emerge from the hedge and enter a colourful world of flowers and old cottages: perhaps a welcoming pub and as centrepiece: the mediaeval church: much modernised. Next door: the war memorial, a simple cross or other device and a few names; often not enough to fill the space left for memorialisation.

At the end of the journey from Ongar to White Notley: a path that runs round Chelmsford and arcs towards Colchester, one realises that large swathes of the county are pretty and empty; the station at White Notley is a permission to travel machine and a shelter. Miss the train and wait fifty minutes for the next. 

This is the only way to see Essex.

A closing of the Sussex border

Once the Sussex border passes Copthorne and stretches past East Grinstead, the countryside becomes more open and undulating with vistas that look both north and south finally straddling the Weald. The path may have outdistanced the South Downs and the land may be gentler in elevation, but this does not mar the overall beauty of the walks. East Sussex is not famed for its wildness (or its railway links!) but pretty villages march across the hills from Gatwick to Canterbury. 

The final two stretches of the Sussex Border Path from Wadhurst to Rye encompass a length of 40 miles. The path wends east and south in a meandering lazy style, so that you can sometimes wander and wonder if any distance has been eaten up. This is one of the effects of walking round reservoirs, in this case, Bewdley Water. That large stretch of water has a shoreline on the north of abouth 5 miles and you walk around these pretty picnic sites.

The second day is of a different duration. The hills peter out as you cross near Bodiam Castle: a ferocious keepsake from the past set in its own moat. Once the fields and the woods are walked through, all that remains is the river running into Rye. The path is mainly long grass; lethal when wet as you get soaked to the skin after rain. Three miles of this skidding and sliding is replaced by the final stretch of the Royal Military Canal; some strange distance markers and the site of Rye Castle gradually looming in the distance. On a warm day, the unfurled flag draws one like the sirenic cries of the Newhaven mermaids to try some of the local cider. And I did! 

This increases my enthusiasm for the 1066 trail.