The South Downs Way
Morning Day 1
Finally, I’m out the door, I have the right gas canister for my portable stove and my bag is stuffed with all the essentials, but mostly trail bars. I meet my mate at the top of a hill above both our houses. The first few miles are quick, easy, we barely notice them go by. The local hills and highpoints are ticked off, Mount Harry, Blackcap, Ditchling Beacon, Devils Dyke. But by the end of the afternoon I realise this is the furthest along the local South Downs I have ever walked or even cycled away from. We had aimed for Chanctonbury Ring, some 20 miles from our starting point, quite an ambitious target that would set us off to a flyer. But it seems we are going to make it fairly comfortably. We drop down into Steyning, this tarmac road is not as nice to walk along as it first looks. We dismiss the first pub we see in the outskirts, too rundown we decide, not worth the mileage, yet it is tempting to think about taking the bag off and having a drink, but we continue to Steyning proper. A ruined castle appears on a hill up the street, and before we know it we are inside the narrow lanes of the town centre, the pub has an interesting Covid-19 one way system where in order to get a drink from the beer garden you have to go around the entire pub and enter back through the front. Slightly annoying and extremely painful on feet that have softened up again after 18 or so miles. We stay a good amount of time, about two hours, but there’s plenty of light left in the day and we are still fairly fresh for the climb up to Chantonbury, our pace is surprisingly swift.
We sit there on the outskirts of the ring — it is a patch of dense woodland — overlooking the plains that stretch out below. We are both very hungry, and we wolf down our spaghetti with pesto, my friend avoids the clumps at the bottom of the pan and I gladly take it off him. Within an hour we are both pitched up and reading in our sleeping bags. All around the wood rustles in the wind, branches creak and groan. I feel a slight shudder, I’m not sure I could ever be totally at ease being in the woods at night. I think how uncomfortable, how spooked out I would feel if I was doing this alone. Thankfully sleep comes easy after walking all day
Day 2
Our first morning waking up on the Downs is a good one. In the early morning light, fields and patches of wood stretch out below while we on the ridge pack away quietly without rush. We pack away, have trail bars for breakfast but it’s not all bad because we have coffee. Coffee tea bags more precisely, it takes a worryingly long time to boil the water for them though and we think we don’t have enough gas after all. By 9 we are packed away and get back on the road for a reasonable 9:30, our latest start on the whole trip. We drop down into Washington, our pace is slow, as if as if we have been infected by the South Downs gentleness. Yesterday was all about covering ground and setting off on a good start. Yet, over the course of yesterday afternoon and todays stunning morning, the pace and rhythm of the path seems to have infected us. It is quiet, slumbering and gentle out here on the path. So, slow out here it could be mistaken for being still. The modest ridge of the way yet to come curls out beyond us. There are no serious peaks, no cavernous depths, it is all so smooth and finely groomed. I want to exclaim how beautiful it is but do my utmost to just take it in and be present with it. Yet, as we would soon find out, this landscape of ease was entirely misleading. my mate has arranged for his mum to drop off a new pair of boots, so by the time of midday we haven’t covered too much in the way of mileage. We plod on, its soon apparent his new boots aren’t any better and we grow tired of walking in the heat and very familiar section of path. This is a tough morning, although we have covered a great amount of ground yesterday, we have stuttered slightly today, our feet are beginning to grow sore and we both realise that this is slightly more challenging than perhaps we had given consideration too. The prospect of a pub lunch in Amberley — which we know is one of the best villages along the entire route — keeps us going. Things take a turn for the worse when we phone the pub up too book, however. Not open Tuesdays apparently. We try another. Same response. Another and another. What about these tea rooms? No, “we are fully booked sorry”. Shit. This is bad, I feel like we have jinxed it by counting on it so much. We have little to do but trudge on, maybe we can get a train to Arundel (a much bigger town, but some miles away) and eat there? We finally drop down into Amberly, both walking increasingly less confidently than yesterday. In a desperate attempt to lunch in Amberly, we try walking into the tearoom to see if what they say on the phone is true. To our delight, it’s not, it’s open, and in fact there’s acres of space inside.
Day 3
It is the beginning of Day 3, we are far enough away from home to feel we are in a different land, yet depressingly close enough to request a lift home. Our feet are quite sore now and we now know to avoid the chalky middle of the path at all costs, much better to stay on some form of grass whenever possible. It is distinctly quiet around here. We pass by barely a sole on this early morning stretch, the light is stunning, the wheat field beside a godly golden, the green of the forest in front, rich, with many shadows, the hills in the distance a faint outline.
The freshness of the morning feels as long ago as the luxury of walking on and beside soft grass verges. We have hit the dreaded, inconspicuous tarmac. It looks smooth enough but perhaps it is too hard, anyhow each step is a smack, each peeling of the foot away a grimace. This morning we were fully aware of the difficulty of covering this much ground on foot, but not all the time, unlike the past few days where we hardly noticed, but now it is painfully, quite horribly always with us. It is quite punishingly hot, in the mid-twenties degrees Celsius, but we get the cricket on the radio. It is the perfect accompaniment to this sunny day trudging along these smooth hills and listening to England’s cricketers doing well in the first test against Pakistan takes the thought away from how much our feet ache. When we finally descend into Duckshollow for our pub lunch, we shout with joy, we are excited to finally make a stop and refresh ourselves with a pint or two. Seeing the white cottage-like country pub there tucked into the shadows of the trees, our smiles broaden. It looks almost perfect from the outside. But by afternoon we realise we let our hunger and need for a good pub get the better of our judgement; the chicken and kidney pie is soft, and plain, the chocolate fudge lukewarm and sad looking, it has been microwaved. The saving grace is the beer and we find it difficult to summon up the energy for the eight miles to where we marked out a decent spot to camp.
We trudge on, but after a few minutes we manage to get up a decent pace. We climb up the downs that overlook the Hartington’s (East and South Hartington, are two villages below) where we find as many people on the hills as we’ve ever seen. The view, extremely similar to the previous highpoints on the walk already ticked off, but also distinct. The north downs are no longer on the distance and have come much closer as we have moved west, s that the two ridges now cradle the villages below in a shallow bowel. Incredibly we are no longer in line north to south with London, but mor like Slough and Reading. The whole journey has been like walking through Tolkien’s inspiration for the Shire. The landscape has an incredibly easy, soft, sleek feel to it, especially when enduring these hot days. Cows graze lazily, bees dart in some hedgerows and the ground is a hardened yet delicate crumbly chalk. Many of these villages we have passed through are ancient, beautiful stone structures that line imperfectly straight cobbled pavements. It is easy to imagine how they have sat here beside their respective rivers and hills for generations in a hazy microcosm that has little interference from the outside world, they have existed like this for centuries, endured some change and yet they remain.
Day 4
Last night we steadily climbed up for hours to Queen Elizabeth country park, for what felt an eternity. Thankfully we experienced a little bit of “trail magic” and came across some flapjacks and water left out for walkers. Four left on the table, we took all of them and the water, leaving a fiver clipped under a cup. The country Park was misty when we awoke and the drips of rain we could hear as light gradually came through the forest made it difficult to want to get up and pack up our stuff. We managed it slowly and it quite a short space of time we were through the underpass under the A3 from Portsmouth and were taking on quite a climb in the drizzle. The pleasing on the eye scenery of walking on the ridge earlier in the week was replaced by a damp walk along tarmac with screaming hips, joints and feet. We stopped in first cafe we saw in East Meon, took onboard some cappuccinos and crisps, and called ahead for a pub lunch at The Shoe Inn at Exton. I don’t remember this part of the walk to well despite it being less than three weeks ago, but I do remember the Shoe Inn. Hands down the best pub I have ever been too. We were ecstatic here, in the most beautiful location and enjoying delicious food felt like the perfect rest bite to f our earlier hardship. We knew we would make it to Winchester now too as we only had about 15 miles to go, having walked 65. We stayed at the Shoe for a ridiculously long time, about 4 hours in total (about an hour was spent cooling our feet in the stream beside our table).
We arrive at the campsite we have picked out late evening. It has a shower, toilets and even an ice machine. Incredibly luxurious for what we have got used to these past few days. We sit without gear spread out, exhausted. I see plenty of shooting stars this evening, but we don’t stay out too long, I am eager to sleep and get on with the day tomorrow.
It is morning on the final day, we are eight miles away from Winchester, it is easily within our grasp now and it is too incredible to reflect on how far we have come just on our feet in such a short space of time. We are tired this morning and knowing we have the shortest mileage of any day previously to cover, we allow ourselves a late start of 10 am. It is ridiculously hot this morning, all ready it is 30 degrees. Neither of us have ever been around here before, it is all new and the names of places are weird. It takes an unfortunately long time to get up Cheesefoot hill in the glaring sun and I have to take my hat off and place it around my neck to protect it more fully.
This is the slowest day by far and the miles stretch out for an age. We know not to look at the map or GPS too much as we walk as it makes the going seem 10 x harder knowing how far you have to go every 20 minutes. But knowing we are so close we keep making the mistake of doing so, unable to comprehend we haven’t completed the eight miles yet. We look sun beaten and broken by the time we arrive in the outskirts of our destination. While the final one into town is one of the most punishing in the heat and hard pavements quite excruciating on already extremely sore feet. We are so broken, and sun-beaten that we can’t summon up the energy to boycott the first pub we see for its uncomfortable name. We don’t stay here long, and it is much more satisfying to sit down on Winchester high street in a buzzing cafe and order two full English’s with extra bacon. Finally, we have made it and I have rarely felt more glad.
