Tag Archives: Walking Holiday

Day 4 – Cami-knickers

Leave a Reply

Cami-flage Day 4 – Monday 14th September 2020

The obligatory weather comparison showed very little to choose between Surrey and Menorca; in either case we would be walking in the heat of the day.

We had some domestic admin to handle (to do with a septic tank – better not to ask, really) before we could go walking. Today’s walk was shorter than some, but more intense than others, involving climbing a couple of hills.

So it was just after 12.00 when we mad dogs went out into the midday sun, starting from a car park, engagingly called “Walking Bottom” (the rather tenuous justification for the title of this post).

The track leads from the car park, down into the rather pretty village of Peaslake.

Normally, Peaslake is absolutely awash with cyclists, as it’s in the Surrey Hills, and thus attractive to the MAMIL road cyclists; and also at the foot of Pitch Hill, hence a magnet for the grunge of the cycling world, mountain bikers. But today, the village was quiet and pleasant.

The downhill track into the village transforms swiftly into an uphill climb out of it.

(that’s me down the path, using the need to take a photo as an excuse to have a breather).  Once up the climb, the track takes the form of the sort of woodland and heathland trails that are familiar to anyone who has walked in this part of Surrey – and, I hope, to you, dear reader, as you will have been following these posts closely, of course, won’t you?  Good.

We passed a couple of ponds

neither of which were bounteously supplied with water, and one even looked entirely dry, a consequence of a very dry Spring and Summer round these ‘ere parts.

The next part of the track leads into what the Fancy-Free Walks website describes as a “delicious veldt”.  Indeed, when we first did this walk (several years ago, now), that’s exactly what it was.  It’s a bit overgrown now…

…but has some lovely clumps of heather and some interesting-looking fungi.

An inexorable climb for another couple of kilometres brought us to the top of the first hill, Holmbury Hill.  You’ll have seen the gin bottle photo from day 2, of course.  The views are quite spectacular.

but there were people there, so we moved on to a place a little further down where there is an access path for those of different ability and a rather nice little seating circle.  I whizzed the drone up and took a photo or two.

and then we headed down the path to the bottom of Holmbury Hill

to the start of the ascent up the next hill, Pitch Hill, which is marked by the rather fabulous buildings of the Duke of Kent School.

We thought it would be nice to exhibit our gin bottle here, so despite the signs saying that photography was prohibited, we took a quick snap.

and then moved on to the track, which goes up

and up, and up

and up and up and up and up. And up.

until eventually we got to the top of Pitch Hill.  The view repaid the effort.

and we took a couple of photos of the gin bottle as well, using the handy trig point as a plinth in one case

before heading down.  The route down bifurcates and you can choose the “high road” or the “low road”.  Our opinion is that the low road is more interesting,  Actually, they’re both just wide forestry tracks, but there’s more peripheral scenery on the low road.

And this took us back to the car, some 6.81 miles after we left it (by comparison, the Menorca equivalent would be 6.77, so we’re still ahead of the game).

Like all of the walks we plan, this is a nice one.  It can be quite hard work in places, but the general scenery and the hilltop views are lovely.  Of course the fact that it was a sunny day helped enormously.

Tomorrow’s walk sees us leave the Surrey Hills for a couple of excursions around Windsor Great Park.  We’re looking forward to circumambling Virginia Water Lake tomorrow, so please join us – same Cami-time, same Cami-channel – to see what the day was like.  ‘Bye for now!

 

Day 1 – Cami-mile: Puttenham, Waverley Abbey, Tilford

1 Reply

Cami-flage Day 1– Friday 11th September 2020

One of the things I’ll do as we go along is to compare the weather between Surrey and Menorca for each day, just to see what we’ve missed.  Today looks on the face of it to be a mixed bag:

So, Menorca is nice and warm, but might rain, whereas Surrey will be cloudy until later and not particularly hot.  Actually, on balance, I think Surrey wins.

Anyway, on with the story of the day!

It seems to be a tradition among the organisers of walking holidays to make the first day the toughest.  This has certainly been a common feature of walking holidays we’ve been on. Maybe this is to soften up the tourists and make them grateful for the small mercies of easier subsequent days?  Whatever, Day 1 of the Cami de Cavalls on Menorca as planned by the Cami 360 crowd would have been the longest, at 12.66 miles. and so it was that our first replica walk was also a long one – officially some 12.45 miles.  In the end, we did 13.28 miles around the Surrey countryside, according to Endomondo.

This being (1) a long walk and (2) the first of, we hope, 13, there was lots to see and take photos of, so please bear with a long and rambling post.  With luck, subsequent entries will be more concise, though I can’t guarantee they’ll be any higher quality.

The general scenery was very pleasant – lovely woodland tracks, occasionally by the water.

Above is a largish pond called the General’s Pond.  In the early part of the walk, there was some very attractive heather

and we decided we didn’t want to bump into any of the moles responsible for these molehills!

Many of the tracks were sunken.

The first several miles were along a formal path called the North Downs Way,

along which is a whimsical “Fairy Cottage”.

Other interesting things were on offer:  some funky fungi:

A steam engine outside a business centre

And a sign which I hope features a typo, otherwise equine outlook is generally gloomy.

We then walked past Moor Park House, which has a chequered history and some lovely buildings

and also features a cellar, which was the perfect place to feature the first photo of our bottle of the Menorcan gin, Xoriguer.

Shortly after this was the second obvious place, which was outside “Mother Ludlum’s Cave”, the one-time abode of the White Witch of Waverley.

The next landmark was the ruins of Waverley Abbey, the first Cistercian abbey in England, founded in 1128 by William Giffard.

I flew the drone here, but didn’t do the site justice, mainly because we were beginning to need to get on with it in order to be on time for lunch.  Here’s the best I can do.

I got a better result with a shot of Waverley Abbey House, the events centre on the other side of the river, though.

The next stop was the village of Tilford, where you can find the Barley Mow and where we found lunch.

Tilford is also home to a famously old oak tree, which we thought would be a good backdrop for another shot with the gin bottle.

At this point, my phone, which was recording the mileage for this journal, gave out, I’m not quite sure why.  Fortunately, I had included a power bank alongside the drone, so we were at least able to maintain continuity. I was quite pleased to have included this, as it’s exactly the sort of thing that you learn from bitter experience to pack the next time.

We then tottered off on the rest of the walk, feeling very full of a delicious lunch.  The countryside around this part of Surrey is delightful.  You’ve already seen photos of the scenery, but there are some wonderful buildings on display, with great tiling and brickwork

and just fantastic settings – for example Cutmill House, which has the largest weeping willow I’ve seen for many a year.

And so, some seven hours after we started, we got back to the car for our journey home.  It was very nice indeed to be able to have a proper cuppa on arrival, and, now I’ve written the day up, I’m going to treat myself to a gin. Possibly two.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the first of these walks. Do join us as we carry on the endeavour to recreate an overseas walking holiday in the UK.  Tomorrow, all being well, will see us visit the highest point in Surrey – Leith Hill.  See you then?

 

Cam-il faut: Final planning

4 Replies

Some final planning was needed, so….

…we set up a typical Menorcan evening scenario as best we could, featuring Spanish chorizo (a la Waitrose), and a Menorcan cocktail called a Pomada – local gin (the ubiquitous-for-the-next-fortnight Xoriguer) and home made lemonade.

We look as if we’ll be lucky with the weather for the next couple of days here, so here’s a comparison between Chobham and Menorca:

Menorca may be warmer, but if our luck holds, we’ll have sunshine to help us on our way. I include a photo from the garden to show that although the official version of the local weather is “cloudy”, we actually had some nice evening light.

Photography will be an important part of the exercise, and as a bit of a challenge I’m going to see what can be achieved with just a mobile phone for the various landscape shots.  I should be able to launch my drone in some places so I might well aim for some aerial shots, too.

The adventure starts at 10am tomorrow as we drive to the start of our first walk – and we have lunched booked for 1.45pm at the Barley Mow in Tilford.  Come and join in as we explore various bits of the Surrey countryside over the next two weeks!