Wrapping up 2013

A year-end summary

The 3 men have retired for Christmas and the New year so it seems a good point to wrap up the statistics. 2013 started very cold with lots of snow but come March we had a very early spring which led to an excellent Summer and a very late Autumn. So our walking was excellent and indeed we have virtually run out of marked paths now throughout Kent and Sussex - but NOT good pubs I hasten to add!

Over the year we clocked up 372 miles of walking which makes a total of 634 miles since our first walk in March 2012. The longest distance anyone can achieve within the UK is the 837 miles between Lands End and John O'Groats so we have  another 200 miles to do before we can say our preparation for this trek is complete!

Even better is the fact that this walking has caused us to walk UP hill for 37,702 feet during this year or 70,725 feet since inception. Mount Everest is 29,035 ft so we are now the proud owners of TWO mount Everest badges!

We will start a new Blog for the 2014 walks and hope that we continue to enjoy the countryside and find even more quaint little country Pubs in the year. You can find the 2014 log here... http://www.3amigoswalking2014.blogspot.co.uk/

2012 Lunch Stops (For Food of Course!)

 Foresters Arms, Fairwarp

Hare & Hounds, Bidborough

George & Dragon, Speldhurst

Chequers, Forest Row

The Sennockian, Sevenoaks

Merriments, Bodiam

Ardingly Inn, Ardingly

The Chequers, Slaugham

Abergavenny Arms, Frant

Nutley Arms, Nutley

Malt Shovel, Eynesford

The Cock, Ide Hill –Twice

Star & Eagle, Goudhurst

The Bull, Bennenden

Spotted Dog, Penshurst

The Swan, Wittersham

The Anchor, Hartfield – Thrice!

The Anchor, Deal

George & Dragon; Downe

Little Brown Jug, Chiddingstone

The Plough, Ivy Hatch

The Crown, Groombridge

The John Harvey, Lewis – Twice

The Sloop, Sheffield Park

The Old George, Shoreham

The Old Jail, Biggin Hill

The Hurstwood, High Hurstwood

Kings Arms, Shoreham

White Horse, Cranbrook

 

2013 - Start of a New Year

3 Men on a Walk - 2013

New year deserves a new Blog so this is it. If you are still hankering after looking at 2012 walks then you can see it here ...

http://wealdway.blogspot.co.uk/

Last year we started walking in March and the weather was brilliant.  So far this year it looks like our ventures will be curtailed by the soggy ground as the UK has just experienced its second wettest year on record and any cross country walks mean you are walking through brown custard for much of the way.

Anyway, lets toast 2013 and hope you read some excellent walks; visit some amazing pubs; and see some wonderful countryside through these pages as the year progresses. Posts which follow this introduction are in newest date order.

 

The 3 Amigos - Ivan, Richard and Trevor

A trip to the "Anchor"

Groombridge to Hartfield circular

It being Christmas and a beautiful bright winter day we decided that a nice stroll out to Hartfiled to visit one of our favourite pubs was on the cards. We parked up at Groombridge and set out along the Forest Way path towards Hartfield, taking a few small deviations along the way just to convince ourselves that this really was a different walk to the one we had done many times previously!
Fortunately, these offsets still  caused us to end up at Hartfield church and the "Anchor" pub which sits alongside it. Arriving at 11-45 we had to wait for the kitchen to open at noon but fortunately the bar tender didn't keep such hours and we sat and enjoyed our first pint of the day and soaked up the atmosphere of this genuine old pub.
The winter landscape across the Weald of Kent can still look dramatic and especially so when the winter sunshine is caught across the trees as these photos show.

Hartfield Church just peeping over the hill

Using the NEW pedometer - fed up with the previous one buggering about - we clocked...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
09/12/2013	18,425	9.26	2:50	943	3.42	1,438	1,434

Goudhurst to Cranbrook Loop

Goudhurst to Cranbrook 11.5 mile loop

 Another nice Autumn day, cloudy but no wind and this made for a good "Walk Day". Trevor had found a loop walk starting at Goudhurst and with the village of Cranbrook about 7 miles along we were bound to find a decent lunch stop.
 
We parked up at Goudhurst (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goudhurst ) which is a very attractive Kent village and started out on our route.
 

 
It was a nice walk but I didn't find anything out of the norm to photograph. The Pub in Cranbrook - The White Horse - provided us with good food and ale but nothing out of the ordinary.
Following lunch we hot footed it back the 4.5 miles to Goudhurst before it got dark.
 

Stats for the day were ...
Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)
02/12/2013	22,997	11.5	04:13	1,030	2.7

Eynsford to Shoreham circular

Eynsford and along the Darent Valley

Trevor was in bed with "Man Flu" so it was only Ivan and Richard who stepped out today. Ivan had found this circular walk but its instructions were somewhat lacking and the creator had relied on inserting photos to guide the walker, including some of a bunch of Fungi he spotted two years ago!
Anyway, the day was set fair but cold and so we set off from the village of Eynsford and headed up the north side of the Darent Valley.

We were right in the middle of the North Downs here and so the countryside and scenery was good. Parts of the walk covered areas we had cris-crossed before but that didn't matter. Our ultimate target was the pub in Shoreham but this time we would approach it down the valley from above the "Cross" set in the hillside as a remembrance for the WW1 locals lost in the war.

This walk took us through a part of Shoreham we had not seen before and lo and behold, we found a new Pub - The Kings Arms - that looked inviting so we dived in there and were not disappointed!

After Lunch we met up with the Darent River Path which took us along the river and back to the car at Eynsford.

Pedometer is still playing up so we didn't have a full count of Stats but we estimated the walk at about 9.5 miles.

The railway viaduct as it crosses the Darent Valley

The Lone tree

Autumn still hasn't finished

Standing at the top of the Shoreham Cross

A wonderful setting for a memorial

The Kings Arms - a new pub for us

Interesting bit of history at the pub

Blackboys to High Hurstwood

Blackboys to High Hurstwood loop - 10.6 miles

We moved the Monday Walk to Tuesday because the weather forecast was so different between the days. Monday was low cloud and drizzly rain and Tuesday was cold brilliant sun and an ideal winter walk day.

We drove to the village of Blackboys. Now some might consider this a bit racist to call a village this name but it has been called this since the 1300's and its believed its name derives from the making of Charcoal in the area, "bois" being French (the local feudal language then) for wood and so the literal meaning was "Black Wood" and not as we might think now, a coloured gentleman from Africa.  We wondered if the village had ever been called Noirbois!

Anyway, off we set in the sunshine through a terrific mix of wood, open countryside and wonderful Autumn views. Buxted Hose, set in Buxted park looked magnificent and we learnt that the path actually took us through the site of the medieval village of Buxted although there is nothing left of it to see.  Apparently in the early 1800's the then Prime Minister Lord Liverpool decided that his view from the house was marred by the village and so he got it moved to the back of the big house! Those villagers knew who was boss in those days.

Meandering our way through the Sussex countryside we were aiming for a pub at High Hurstwood and it didn't disappoint. Imaginatively named "The Hurstwood" we enjoyed good ale and posh-nosh for dinner (It was classed as a "Gastro-Pub" and we looked a bit out of place in our muddy walking boots and tops!).

Refreshed and with only a few hills to negotiate on the 4.5 mile return journey we continued to enjoy the afternoon sun and the way it bought out the colours in the trees.

Cold but brigh sun - the perfect English walk-day

Autumn is very late this year and the
leaves are still clinging on

Buxted Park House taken from where the old village
should have been!

Buxted Church now on the far side of the house!

The glorious Sussex countryside

Lunch stop - The Hurstwood

Autumn over the Weald of Kent

Not many red colours this year just the rust-browns

Perfect reflections in this old mill-pond

Stats for the day were ...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
19/11/2013	21,196	10.6	4:20	953	2.5	2,067	2,101

A Walk to Jail!

Downe to Berry's Green via "Jail"

Another weekend storm left us with a sunny Monday for the second week running. However, two weeks of rain has left the ground fully sodden and at times we wished we were walking in wellington boots. Trevor even swore he was wearing his "Budgie Smuggling Speedo's" just in case we had to swim anywhere!

Ivan and Richard had actually done this walk before during the summer but we started the loop at a different place because we had heard of a pub which used to be an old Jail when it was built over 200 years ago and this sounded like a great place to stop for lunch.

Sunlight through the trees and the carpet of leaves

We were up in the North Downs again and had expected to see the full range of Autumn colours in the Beech trees and Pines but it seems we are not due a colourful autumn this year because everything is so late.  It's now almost a week into November and most of the trees are still in green leaf.

Trevor trying to brush up his tan.

Not as coulourful an Autumn as we would expect

Inside the Jail

The Old Jail turned out to be an excellent country pub (see http://www.bigginhill-history.co.uk/thejail.htm ) The Pub is sited just half a mile or so from Biggin Hill, the famous Battle of Britain Airfield and apparently was a firm favourite with pilots during the war.

The Pedometer let us down today but we estimated the circular walk from Downe to Knockholt and back Via the Jail was 9 miles.

Otford & North Downs Circular

The North Downs and Pilgrims Way

 This was a "Tuesday Walk" as the severe St Jude's Gale put paid to any walking on Monday. It was a good call to postpone the outing because following the storm came the most beautiful sunny Autumn day and it was a joy to be out walking.
 
We chose a walk from the excellent walking web site "Fancy Free Walks" which took us into an area of the North Downs previously unknown to us. It was billed as either 15.5 miles or 9 miles by taking a shortcut, and we chose to do a combination of the two and ended up walking 10.5 miles!
 
Starting out from the lovely village of Otford the path quickly took us up a steep hill onto the top of the North Downs . We then followed the old "Pilgrims' Way" track which used to take Pilgrims from Winchester to Canterbury Cathedral. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims'_Way ) east along the escarpment for about 4 miles. The views were excellent.
 
The trail then effectively turned north and we walked across the deep rolling valleys of the downs. Some of the steep inclines both down and up were real leg-stretchers. This walk took us past a couple of really old, out of the way Pubs tucked into places that nobody would ever find by accident. The first was "The Rising Sun" and the walk notes said ...
 
"The “Rising Sun” is misplaced in time and space and four cheers for that! Your

granddad would recognise it as one of many cottages serving as inns where

the landlady might be sitting outside or pottering in the garden and pops in to

serve you a glass or two. There is a cat who has commandeered a whole

section of the pub, a small dog and an old grey parrot who regularly greets you.

Plop down on the big sofa in front of the fire in winter or sit in the garden in

summer. Pumps dispense Hophead and Old Cocky. Bring your own picnic to

go with the drinks, as there is no food. Visit before it gets bought up and

renovated!" 

 The next Pub was The Fox and Hounds at Romney Street and would you believe it, we didn't stop at either of these because we had earmarked "The Old George" in Shoreham Village as our lunch stop. Shoreham is in the Darent Valley, a small river that cuts a swath through the North Downs. It is famous for its memorial cut into the chalk hillside as a remembrance of the fallen soldiers in the first world war. There is a white memorial cross in the hillside opposite the village church. It was dug in 1920 as a memorial to local men killed in action. Shoreham was the birthplace and home of Private Thomas Highgate, who was the first British soldier to be shot for desertion during the First World War on 8 September 1914, following the Battle of and Retreat from Mons. In 2000, Shoreham Parish Council voted not to include his name on its war memorial. However, after a posthumous pardon in 2006, it was considered that his name might be added.


 
After lunch we climbed up the West slope of the valley before turning south and following the river back to the car at Otford. This was a lovely scenic walk, tough on the legs but well worth the effort.



Otfords famous "Duck Pond" Roundabout listed as a
grade 2 monument!

Otford Palace once a 16th Century posh residence
for the Archbishop of Canterbury

The steep path up the North Downs

The View back at Otford from the top

The PIlgrims' way path

The Rising Sun pub in the middle of "nowhere"

Pretty Church at Woodlands Village

Yet another country pub in no-mans-land!

Some of the steep slopes needed steps to
 get up and down they were so steep

The White Cross on the hillside opposite Shoreham Church

The 15th century wooden porch on the old
Norman Church in Shoreham village

Lunch Stop!

The War Memorial in Otford with
the cross in the background



The Darent Valley from the west side close to the cross.

Aftermath of the storm the previous day. Power lines down to a remote hamlet

 Stats for the day were ...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
29/10/2013	25,797	12.9	5:19	1,156	2.4	3,357	3,131

River Ouse Trail Leg 3

Sussex Ouse Path - Ardingly Reservoir to Newick

 
We decided to continue this trail and none of us dare end up at Lewis Brewery for three consecutive weeks so we moved "Up River"! After a weekend of almost continuous rain Carol the TV Weather Lady said that we could expect no rain until mid afternoon so we set off. After some debate about whether it was better to walk "Up-Stream" from Newark or "Down-Stream" from Ardingly caused by whether we chose this Pub for lunch or that one, we set out from Ardingly Reservoir car park.
 
The initial section of the trail was actually coincident with the High Weald Landscape trail we did earlier in the year except this time we were walking in the other direction. Ivan wanted to see the "Balcombe Viaduct" over the river Ouse so we made an initial short detour.  This railway Viaduct is a grade 2 listed building (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouse_Valley_Viaduct ) and this early Victorian wonder of engineering is still in daily use with over 100 trains a day passing over it on the London to Brighton line. Apparently, the River Ouse was navigable up to the Viaduct and a local boat haulier had the contract to ship the millions of bricks needed for the viaduct. Once completed and the railway started running all the freight switched from the river to the railway and the boat company went bust. Must be a morale there somewhere!
 
This was a nice walk through wonderful countryside but we couldn't help noticing that we never saw the River Ouse for the first 7 miles! Maybe that's why some wag called it the Ouse VALLEY walk rather than the River Ouse walk. However, the good thing about it was that at the 7 mile point the trail passed directly in front of a nice little pub, "The Sloop" situated next to the river and miles from anywhere!  Maybe the boat captains used to stop their on their way to deliver bricks to the viaduct!
 
The Sloop was a free-house which meant they had a range of local micro-brewery beers but because we had to drive back later we only partook in moderation.
 
Back to the car around 3-00pm and within minutes we hit a rain shower. That Carol the weather Lady sure knew her stuff eh!!

Trains still run frequently over the Viaduct

The Viaduct from afar

Fungi of all shapes and sizes were a big feature of the walk



The Lunchtime stop



The River Ouse next to the Pub. I can't see a Sloop making it!

The woods abound with them

  Stats for the day ...

 

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
14/10/2013	21,144	10.6	4:11	1,225	2.5	1,558	1,742