Filed under: exercise, friends, training | Tags: Greensand Way, walking, Westerham
Although the forecast was for heavy rain, I was determined to make it out for a walk this weekend. We met friends at Westerham, tucked into a delicious pub lunch, and fully fuelled headed out for a walk through the woods south of the town. It’s fair to say that perhaps we should have had a lighter lunch before the walk; the boys pies were massive and we were much slower than normal for the first hour or so. Happily the weather was much kinder than expected and there were only one or two little drops of rain, and most of the time we were just walking in t-shirts, which made a lovely change.
We started by following the Greensand Way south into Squerryes Park, and on to Goodley Stock. We stayed on the Greensand Way all the way to French Street, where we picked up a track through Hosey Common to return to Westerham. Although not a very long walk, it was a very enjoyable one. We always like walking in woodland, and the woods around Westerham were lovely, and the land undulating enough to get our legs working a little. I’d love to return again in a few weeks as much of the woodland looked like it would be awash with bluebells.
So that was our last walk before the Y3P (Yorkshire 3 peaks) and our holiday in the lakes. The weather doesn’t look good for the Easter weekend, but we’ll go fully prepared for wind, driving rain, bogs and maybe even snow, and perhaps we’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Happy Easter Everyone!
Apologies for the distinct lack of posts the past couple of weeks; we’ve been busy seeing family, viewing houses and selling our house, so there’s not been much time for walking unfortunately. However we’ll be back out on the paths tomorrow as we tackle Ramsgate to Canterbury once again. We’ve done this twice before (once in each direction) and although it’s not the best walk ever, being in ever-so flat Kent, it is a good distance and it is easy to get the train home at the end of it.
Hopefully Chris and Emma will be joining us; they are walking the 3 peaks with us in a couple of weeks, and tomorrow will be the first time we’ve walked with them. All fingers are crossed for good weather and good walking. I shall report back asap.
[Edit] Walk didn’t happen…dont ask! I obviously shouldn’t jinx these things by writing about them!
Filed under: exercise, friends, weather | Tags: Greensand Way, North Downs Way, Skimmington, Surrey, walking
This Sunday’s walk was meant to be a biggy, both in terms of distance and in terms of people. The plan was to get 6 of the Yorkshire 3-peakers together to practice walking together over a longish distance around Ditchling and Devils Dyke. Yet again Sunday started as a miserable day and we lost two walkers before we even left the house. We consulted the others and opted for a shorter walk near them so we could more easily escape the weather.
The walk started at the pub in Skimmington, where we picked up the Greensand Way, following it to the top of Colley Hill:
We’d all learnt from the previous week and were fully waterproofed-up. It rained on and off for much of the walk, though the rain was fairly light and we could take our hoods down occasionally. The ground however was saturated after a week of rain and there were massive puddles and lots of mud everywhere:
We walked along the ridge, passing a beautiful folly and a victorian water tower, before joining the North Downs Way for a while. This section passed through some lovely woodland and we’d love to walk here again on a sunny day. Turning south to Buckland we began to head back to Skimmington and our pub lunch (delicious and very welcome). In the end the rain eased off and we had a thoroughly enjoyable and varied walk, despite the mud (route).
2 friends and the coast to coast walk 