Seaford to Lewes

Seaford to Lewes along the Sussex Ouse River Trail

It looked like good weather for a walk day and with Trevor and Richard both returning from holidays it was left to Ivan to "tee-up" this one. We drove down and parked up on the sea front at Seaford at 10-00am.
The Sussex Ouse trail is 42 miles long but we have done small sections of it previously and effectively today we were starting at the end and walking Up-Stream from the sea towards the river's source. Ivan had planned for us to walk around 15 miles stopping off at the town of Lewes for lunch. But as you will read, once we reached the Brewery in Lewes we decided to abort the walk as we got holed up in a wonderful little pub across the road from the Harvey's Brewery!
Following a river leads to a relatively flat walk but it also lead us along a big wide valley which seemed to make the walk "endless" and whilst we kept up our usual pace it seemed to take forever to move from village to village. At one point we swore that the town of Lewes which we could see on the horizon was moving away from us at the same 2.6 mph we were walking!
However, the scenery was good and the thirst we had when we stumbled into the "John Harvey" pub was quickly slaked. It didn't take much persuasion to agree that we could get the train back to Seaford later that afternoon!

The start at Seaford Beach

The Sussex Ouse Valley

Southease Church with its unusual round tower.
It claimed to be over 1000 years old

The River at Piddinghoe

Chalk Cliffs sit each side of the valley

Approaching Lewes

SALVATION! The John Harvey Pub

Beer poured directly from the barrel - wonderful

The beer only had to cross the road!

Stats for the day were ...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
30/09/2013	20,611	10.5	3:55	1176	2.7	906	956

Our Walk Logs to date

How far have we walked?

I have just totted up the walk logs we have been keeping since we got the Pedometer back in March last year.  This is what it is telling us we have done since 26th March 2012 ...

Total walking distance        527.9 miles.   That is only 75 miles short of the road distance from Lands End to John O'Groats in Scotland!

Total Calories used up        63,482. At a normal daily intake of 2,600 calories for an adult that's 24 days food we have used up!

Elevation gained                 78,438 feet. That's 2.7 times MORE than walking up mount Everest!

Time walking                      217.39 hours. That's 9 full days walking 24 x 7. Except of course we always stop at a Pub half-way round!!

Long may it continue! 

 P.S  Dave asked if we could say how many pints of ale we had consumed. Fortunately our pedometer is like a good friend - it doesn't count!!

Round the Rocks

Around the Rocks - Harrison's; Eridge and High

Just a short 8 mile loop today because holiday's are looming and there was still plenty to do!  Also, the morning weather looked great but heavy rain was forecast for the afternoon so the plan was to complete the walk BEFORE having lunch!

We parked up at Groombridge and walked across and around Harrison's Rocks to start with. Then, walking across to Eridge, we followed the line of Eridge Rocks along and into Broadwater Forest. Once through the forest ( a nice Bird Sanctuary as well) we headed across to "The High Rocks" before following the River Groom back to Groombridge, where we lunched in The Crown and drank "Black Cat" ale from the local micro-brewery as the heavens opened and we congratulated ourselves on such a perfect plan!


More Eridge Rocks

Eridge Rocks





Pond in Broadwater Forest

Stats for the day were ...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
16/09/2013	15,679	7.9	3:08	873	2.6	1,327	1,322

Knole to Shipbourne

Knole to Shipbourne along the Greensand Way

This was a very pretty walk on not such a pretty day. This was the first wet-walk day for many months but it stayed dry until lunchtime and guess what, we just had to shelter in a delightful little pub to escape the rain!

Parking up at the south side of Knole Park, the route took us through the park and out into the village of Godden Green. Nice pub here (the Bucks Head) but it was way to early to stop. From here the path climbed up onto the Greensand Ridge and we followed this through Seal Chart and then dropped down into Ivy Hatch where our lunch break awaited us in the guise of "The Plough". We have stopped here before and it's a delightful pub serving excellent local ales and hosting a good kitchen to match them. As previously mentioned, the rain started about 15 min before we reached this pub and this was the first outing for the waterproofs since early springtime.

It was still damp but the main belt of rain had passed when we exited the pub and set about the loop around Fairlawne and into Shipbourne village. We could have stopped at "The Chaser" pub in Shipbourne but had decided that The Plough was more to our taste!

Fairlawne House and park

What Ivan was doing underneath that cape we never knew!

Igtham Mote - an original 13th century house

Not the best day for views but still worth seeing.

We followed the Greensand Way path from Shipbourne right back to the car. The views across the weald from this path were great even though tempered a bit by the low cloud. This would be a great Spring walk and we will do it again next year when the Bluebells are out.

Stats for the day were ...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
09/09/2013	21,092	10.6	4:03	1,192	2.7	2,067	2,073

Penshurst - Leigh - Chiddingstone Circular

Penshurst - Leigh - Chiddingstone 10.5 mile Circular

This was a great and very pretty walk on a superb English summer day.

We parked up at Penshurst because we judged that this would get us to our lunch-stop about midday - and with perfect timing we arrived 10 mins early!

The walk was called "100 Oasts and two Castles" and whilst we didn't actually count them all, we certainly passed lots of Kent Oast Houses. The first section took us through the parkland of Penshurst Place, the ancestral home of the De L'isle family. The views across the Weald of Kent are magnificent.

Walking through the quaint village of Leigh we headed off towards Chiddingstone, choosing to by-pass "The Greyhound" pub at Charcott - well actually we were too early! - and pressing on to the "Little Brown Jug" at Chiddingstone Causeway where liquid refreshment was very welcome on such a hot day.

The Little Brown Jug lunch stop

Lunch over we stepped out towards the ancient village of Chiddingstone where the entire village was purchased by the National Trust to preserve it for the nation.

Chiddingstone Village street often used in film sets

According to history, the village was named after the "Chiding Stone"; a giant boulder where the stone was used as a seat of judgement, mainly to remonstrate or "Chide" overbearing and nagging local wives. Apparently the nagging spouse would be placed atop the stone and the village menfolk would tell her off! We agreed that we needed to return to this place with our own spouses as soon as we could! Unfortunately on this day we only had Trevor to test it on so we put him atop the rock and hurled abuse at him for 10 mins - but it didn't seem to work!

Try as we may, we simply could not "Chide" Trevor on the Chiding Stone

From here we had a gentle 2.5 mile trip through the rolling countryside back to the car.

The Oast Houses in the distance belong to the Larkins Micro Brewery whose ale we disposed of at lunch. 

Stats for the day were ...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
02/09/2013	20,985	10.5	4:22	1,151	2.4	1,338	1,344