We’ve just got back from watching Hancock (a very pleasant film) and we’ve planned our walk for tomorrow. 15 miles in a lovely part of Kent hopefully with a pub in the middle in Wye and one at the end in Chilham.
I’m planning on taking a bit of video with my phone as I want to try and post to the tinterweb without using the laptop as that’s what I’m hoping to do on a daily basis on our coast to coast.
Wish me luck.
Sid.
This week we have mostly been … walking to work. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday this week we walked both to and from work. It’s about 6 miles we think (Ramsgate to Sandwich) making 12 miles a day. Turns out that 12 miles of walking plus a full day’s work is quite tiring! Its a pretty easy walk, so no complaints except my slightly sore little toes :( but it does get a bit repetitive by the third day. On the plus side we do get to see and hear lots of wildlife, including hundreds of snails, particularly on Wednesday when it was drizzling…they were all over the path and we had to concentrate hard not to cause a snail massacre with our big boots!
We’ll also be venturing off for a walk at the weekend; planning something in Kent probably around the Wye area, incorporating some of the North Downs Way. We’re also hoping to pop to Maidstone so we can go to the big Cotswolds store for a spot of shopping!
Now that I’ve wrestled the laptop away from Michelle (she’s strong for her size you know!) it’s my turn to blog about our latest walk.
In our quest for hills in Kent we decided to grab one of our maps and look for a spot with plenty of relief lines. With Kent being one of the flattest counties they stand out a fair bit and it wasn’t long until we started looking at Elham Valley. Situated just off the A2 just north of Dover it was fairly easy for us to get to. A quick drive past work and through Wingham soon got us to Barham, the start of our walk. The plan was to walk down the Elham Valley Way to Elham. You can see the planned route on gmaps-pedometer. You can also see the route we actually took over there too.
The walk was really good and we’d highly recommend it. We went out of Barham towards Redgate Shaw taking in our first hill of the day. From there it was over some fields, down a steep bank where we could see all the bunny tracks leading out of the hedges (we saw the track creators on our way back and there we’re tonnes of them little critters :)) and then through Covert Wood.
During the day we went through plenty of wooded areas. I don’t know what it is but there’s something I really enjoy about walking through woods. On the walk Michelle and I decided that our ancestors must have been wood dwellers rather than farmers or some such thing. I think it must be something to do with the mystery of woods. You know when you look at the trees they’ve been there for a lot longer than you, they’ve survived the wars, they’ve had years worth of visitors and in all that time they just stand there chilling out. Combine that with all the fairy tale happenings of woods and the horror stories you watch and you have a pretty cool place. I’d love to camp in one somewhere.
Once we came out of Covert Wood it was a little further until Redoak Cottages. This is where our lollipop became mishapen. For some reason we confidently strode away down a well marked path. I think it’s well-markedness gave us confidence. What we should’ve done is looked slightly to our right to see another well marked path. As it was we overshot Little Breach Farm and got to South Barham Farm instead. No big deal, it only added a mile or two to our walk but it’s bloody annoying when you get lost. It just drive me up the wall. We have map and compass and then we just stride on without looking at either. We can be fools sometimes.
Once we got back on track we were Elham bound and what a lovely place it is. We came into The Square which was absolutely packed. It turned out that it was Elham Garden Open Day. We avoided the crowds and headed straight into the beer garden of The Kings Arms. Off came the gaitors and boots and down went the pints of ice cold diet coke and a couple of packets of Salty Dog crisps. We even decided to have a little lie down before getting the boots back on and heading back.
Since I’d done such a bad job with the map on the way there Michelle took over navigation and I took charge of the camera. That’s probably why there’s so few photos on the way back and also why we didn’t get lost!
On the way back it was more of the same, angry dogs, good weather, lovely forests and fields and just generally a brilliant walk. In total we climbed about 200 metres which is pretty good going in Kent (you can walk for miles and only gain about 5 metres!) The plan is to revisit it at some point and document it to go onto Walking World. We pick up a few of our walks from there so thought we should give something back to that community.
You can see the photos over on our Flickr pages.
Next week camping. WooHoo.
Sid.
On our way from The Cotswolds up to Willington, we decided to break up the journey with a walk. We stopped near Chesterfield for a circular walk starting from Creswell Crags. Whilst the caves at Creswell are interesting, the majority of the walk was not. There were some nice parts; through some woodland and along side fields, but there was too much road walking for our liking and not much of interest along the way. It also didn’t help that the weather was pretty poor and we got soaked walking through the corn fields (including wet feet!).
Nevertheless it was a good way to break up the journey north, and my mushroom interest was piqued again!…
Hopefully we’ll have better luck next time. If you want more details, it’s walk 3978 on Walking World.
We’ve finally been back out on the paths! Last weekend we headed up to Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds with friends Mark and Clare for a spot of walking.
Outside Lavender Cottage.
We did a lovely circular starting from Bourton on the Water (Walk 1360 from Walking Britain); the walk was about 11 miles and passed through Naunton, and both Upper and Lower Slaughter…all beautiful villages! It was a gorgeous day and the sun shone throughout.
The boys, the river and a beautiful house.
We followed the River Windrush and the Windrush Way through some beautiful scenery to Naunton, where we stopped for a delicious lunch (although the boys probably over-indulged a little!)
Approaching Naunton.
After lunch we took to the Warden’s Way and headed through the Slaughter’s (beautiful) where we stopped for a spot of tea, cake and ice cream and then headed home.
A face-off with some tough lambs.
This was a lovely walk, with varied terrain, a few hills and nice scenery. Most of the paths were good, although some were very muddy. We saw plenty of wildlife, including a deer and heard lots of birds! Highly recommended!
Wow it’s been way too long since we last posted! Apologies, but there hasn’t been much of relevance to post as we’ve been trying to get a bit of stuff done in the garden.
Anyway thought I’d update you on a few more purchases we’ve made in preparation for the C2C; we may not have been walking far, but we have managed a walk around the shops!…
1) Poles:Yes we finally bit the bullet and got some (1 each); our local Millets is closing down :( which means everything’s half price 
Because of this we were able to teat ourselves to the Leki Ultralight Carbon walking poles, which should have been 50 quid each, but we got two for 50! Hooray! They are VERY light and I can’t wait to test them out on a good hilly walk!
2) Digital Camera: We have joined the digital photo world at last! Up until now we’ve either been using our mobile phones for pics, or my old Canon automatic! This should be a big improvement. As you know there’s A LOT of choice out there and it was difficult to decide which model to get. I did some research on What Digital Camera and they gave the Panasonic Lumix DMC FX33 top marks, so that’s what we got. Sadly they didn’t have it in black like I hoped, but I’ll survive. It’s so small compared to my old canon, and seems pretty easy to use so far…lots of different modes, but the intelligent auto seems to work ok for most things anyway. I wonder if you’ll be able to spot the difference?
We are planning on walking again soon, a weekend near the cotswolds with Mark and Clare in a couple of weeks…so watch this space!
Wow, how stunning is the Lake District!? The hills, the mountains, the lakes, the colours, the stone, the lambs, the weather. Well we had everything except good weather!
We travelled up to the Lakes in a very full little car; Hatti and I well snuggled up in the back with duvet and pillows, and the boot full of walking gear.
Day 1: After a little shopping in Keswick (wow that place has a lot of out-door shops!) we set off from Grange for Cat Bells. Starting off along the lanes and through the woods, we the wandered along the shore of Derwent water towards Cat Bells. It was a lovely walk, with a few scrambles and good sections of up-hill, however the weather was rather changeable and it soon became rather wet and breezy. It was great to reach the top…our first real peak! (even if its not a big one) Our descent lead to our first fall, as Dan took a tumble. There was no damage (except to his pride), but it wouldn’t be the last bruised ego.
Day 2: High Seat was the target today, via Lodore Falls and Watendlath. We started off along the road to Lodore Falls, which were beautiful. Unfortunately we later discovered that we’d gone too far and should have turned off the road quite a bit earlier, which lead to some confusion later on. Nevertheless it was a lovely climb up over Gowder Crag and after some confusion around Hogs Earth and backtracking, we eventually found Watendlath Beck and followed if all the way to Watendlath. From here we turned East and headed up towards High Tove. The higher we got the worse the weather and ground got. At the top it was very boggy, there was no obvious path and no visibility! We persevered for a while, ate our lunch in the rain, had a little adventure putting my waterproof trousers on and then decided that for safety’s sake we should re-think our plans. So we headed back to Watendlath and over to Rosthwaite for a couple of pints in the Riverside Bar (complete with a massive dog!) Refreshed, we headed back to Grange along the Derwent and stumbled across a very impressive cave! Back at the cottage we dried off and warmed up and headed back to Keswick for Fish and Chips…yum!
Day 3: No walks today; after our very wet adventure yesterday we all had things we wanted to buy to be better prepared next time, like gaiters, trousers (instead of jeans) etc. So back to keswick it was for a little shopping trip, including a Pasty for lunch. We decided we should spend some time on the lake as we were in the Lake district; after an age figuring out what we should do, which boat to get and where to go, we plumped for a trip from Lodore to Keswick. The plan was to have a few pints and get the bus home, but we missed it so had a few more pints then got a taxi back instead! The boat trip was VERY VERY wet, shame because I can imagine on a nice day it would be fantastic!
Day 4: Home today; we woke to find the sun out - how unfair!? Sun on the day we’re driving home, but our annoyance was short-lived as the rain soon returned!
All in all we had a great, if a little (very) wet weekend and we cant wait to return! I think Kent will seem even flatter from now on!
Hooray hooray we’re off to the lakes tonight for a long weekend with our friends Dan and Hatti. Planning on doing lots of great walks and generally having a lovely time with plenty of Port. We’re staying in a cottage in Grange, in Borrowdale - looks lovely. Come back next week for full report of our Lakeland adventures! Only 7hours to go!
This weekend, as mentioned below, we were in St Albans. A lovely town with plenty of shops and some great restaurants. We just fancied a random weekend away, but while we were there did a spot of shopping too! We bought ourselves a BIG rucksack each; maybe for walking when we build up the courage to carry all our stuff, but also for trips away and mostly for festivals…anyone who’s done the trek from car to campsite at many festivals knows the pain, and a big rucksack seems the least painful way to get everything from A-B. We both favoured the Berghaus models and went for similar versions, though mine is slightly smaller and meant to be better for girls Also got some myself some spare boot laces (thought they could have given us them for free as we were spending £200, but alas no luck).
While we were away we did a nice little walk near St Albans…a circular starting at Lemsford, incorporating the Lea Valley Way and Hertfordshire Way (I think). A nice easy walk with good sights and views and some rhubarb for sale as a bonus!
