Bodium Loop

Bodium to Merriments - 7 miles loop

H O O R A Y  no rain today. But the biting Arctic wind bought chill factors down to -3 deg so it was definitely a  hats, gloves and scarf day. Ivan had found a loop walk from Bodium which claimed to be 8 miles but we found it to come out at only 7 miles and we swear we didn't get lost and take any shortcuts!

Bodium is a very small village with an almost perfect moated castle and we parked in the castle car park and set off anti-clockwise. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodiam

Bodium Castle a 14th Century castle

Richard had to try out his new toy - a beautiful hand made walking staff given to him as a present by his close friends at Nielsen.  The stick was made to suit my height from a Hazel rod with Roe Deer thumb stand by the guy below at James Smith & Sons, a very famous London maker of canes, sticks and umbrellas. See http://www.james-smith.co.uk/



The man that made the stick!

The walk turned out to be very pretty and very kind under-foot as much of it was along farm tracks and road which meant we weren't wading through ankle high mud and slush like last week.



One slight disadvantage was that there was not a "Pub" on route but Ivan had noticed a Café just off the route and we headed for that. What a find, a brilliant place with great food set in a fish farm. The lakes that surrounded the café were full of different species of Duck and Swan and on a nice sunny day it would have been a great place to sit outside at.

Nature is trying its hardest to seek out a UK Springtime. Many of the woodland flowers are wanting to bloom but the intense cold is keeping them at bay.  In the very sheltered banks we saw Primroses and the leaves of Bluebells and wild garlic are through.  IF - and its a big IF - we eventually get a spell of proper warm spring sunshine then I think the woodlands will explode into colour in one big overture event. 



The old bridge across the river Rother

Stats for the walk were...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (min)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
25/03/2013	13,128	6.8	161	792	2.5	886	870



Eridge Green to Frant circular

Eridge Green / Frant circular

The weather forecast seemed to be getting better and on this Monday morning the sun was trying to wake up and the forecast was "Good with maybe an occasional shower". A good day for a walk we thought so decided to resurrect the cancelled plan from last week when snow stopped play.

Now I'm not entirely sure what the definition of a shower is and presumably the definition that distinguishes a shower from perpetual rain is a time interval. Well if that is true then the time span between our "Showers" was measured in Nano-seconds! My, did we get wet.

I guess to be fair we did start out from Eridge Green in sun and I took this photo to prove it.

Taken in the two minutes of sunshine we saw

But about 30 seconds after taking it, the sleet started; then hail, then very wet rain. But we pushed on because the "Abergavenny Arms" was calling and we knew they had open fires and we could dry out.

Drying out our coats, gloves and hats in the Pub.

Refreshed with a pint of Harvey's best and lunch we set out for the return leg which was the longer section. The mud on the way from Eridge was bad but this section was so slippery that Ivan thought we would get on better wearing Ski's it was so slippery. The falling rain which was continuous by now didn't help and we skidded and slipped up every hill and down every dale. The map print-out was so wet it fell apart and we had to get the GPS out just to ensure we kept to the trail.

Raindrops kept falling on our head

Apart from the rain the day was marked by some incredible sightings of wildlife. We saw more deer on this one walk than we saw on all last years walks put together and we also had a rare sighting of an Otter.

However, in the end we made it back to the car and were impressed by the stats for the day under such conditions. The legs knew all about it too!

Stats for the day were ...

 

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (min)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
18/03/2013	17,293	8.9	233	1,017	2.4	1,557	1,424

Bad weather stops play

This time last year we had started the Weald Way walk in glorious spring sunshine. Daffodils were out and the Bluebells and Primroses were just breaking out. We wore short sleeve shirts and had to don the sun-glasses.

For the past two days we have had snow blizzards driven by gale force winds and chill factors of minus 8 deg C. We wore 5-layers of clothes, scarves, gloves, hats and snow-goggles.

So Ivan and Richard got it wrong and only made it to the pub. Trevor got it right by spending a month in Australia!

God, do we need the Sun God back.

Nutley - Sheffield Forest Loop

Sheffield Forest to Nutley Windmill loop

Fingers crossed that Spring might just have arrived. The weather people reckoned it might just reach double figures today in some sunshine but out walking there was a keen breeze and we think it probably only reached 8 degC. Still that is a lot better than the past month and we were grateful for the lovely blue sky and sunshine.

We had picked a circular walk which just touched the western edge of the Ashdown forest and then looped around the village of Nutley and through the Sheffield forest.

By carefully choosing the starting point we reckoned to hit Nutley around 12-30ish for lunch at the only pub on the walk - and yes, Ivan had phoned them to ensure they cooked lunch on Mondays! So we parked up at a hamlet called Furner's Green and set out about 10-30. (Link here Furner's Green, East Sussex TN22

The walk only had written instructions and almost immediately we got lost! Out with the GPS and whilst we were studying the technology and maps a lady walking her dog came past  and said "you need to go that way" ! So being obedient men we did! However, we were off the actual route at that time so we used the map and GPS to devise a modified loop that 20 mins later got us back onto the right instructions.

The walk was very steep in places and dipped in and out of woodland. One sign that we are on the edge of Spring was the wonderful displays of Snowdrops that we kept coming across. Also, the gorse was just starting to show its vivid yellow blooms. We even saw a couple of early Primroses and a couple of Daffodils

Whether we were tired from missing a couple of weekly walks or maybe our detour had put us behind schedule but after struggling up some big hills we found we had only covered 5 miles and we were nowhere near Nutley or its Windmill!

A terrific "Wealden House" at Chapel Wood













The trouble with Windmills is that they tend to be built on the top of hills and eventually we saw the one we needed to reach and yes, it was 1.5 miles away up a hill! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutley_Windmill

Nothing for it but to push on and at 12-45 we passed said Windmill and looked forward to the 1.5 mile downhill section on the other side and the only Pub on the route. At 1-30 two very tired walkers slumped into the Nutely Arms, not quite the quaint inn we hoped for but it had beer and food. Good food but poor beer choices - we only had a choice of lager or Guinness so it was two pints of the Black stuff we quaffed.

The good thing was that after lunch we only had 3 miles to go which was very beneficial because the legs didn't want to move very fast.

Nice walk and maybe one to do again when the Bluebells come into flower.



Stats for the walk were ...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)	Av Speed (mph)
04/03/2013	19750	10.4	04:08	1243	1783	1691	2.6