South Downs Way, Part 2

Rejoining the Way

Another weekend, and another trip to the South Downs.  What with section hiking the Way this spring, and a few cycle trips where this direction is one of few I can take without riding through central London, I seem to have ended up around these parts a fair bit recently.  Worse places to be I guess - though, now I've got to the central section of the Way, just getting to it isn't too easy.  I set off from Victoria station, the evil that is Westminster council meaning I have to park my bike the other side of the river and walk... then, as the train unexpectedly passes through East Croydon I realise it would have been better to get on there - if only it were in any way easy to find out where these trains stop in advance.

But anyway.  By 11am I'm back where I was two months before, in Amberley.  The effects of the wettest April in a century can be seen in the flooded fields and swollen river Arun, but today the sky is blue, for maybe the first weekend since I was here last - I should go walking more often.  It does make for hot work as I slog up onto the ridge, once I'm up though the route proves to be pretty flat.  Indeed for most of the weekend the Way lies along the chalk ridge top, only occasionally dipping into valleys.  To the North the ground falls away steeply, and then the Sussex countryside stretches away to the horizon, where the hills around East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells are visible.  To the South there is a more gentle slope down to the sea, which gradually grows nearer as the walk progresses.

In front of the Jack and Jill windmills

I'm by no means the only one to have come up here, I share the path with all manner of walkers, joggers, mountain bikers, and indeed paragliders and microlight flyers.  Not to mention a fair number of sheep and cows.  There is room for us all though, as the Way stretches on - 22 miles for me on Saturday, and 26 on Sunday.  Still, the Ukrainian boots are holding up well, and I get to the Jack and Jill in good time after the first day of walking - the pub is named for the two windmills that sit, appropriately enough, up a nearby hill.  Some decent beer, tasty parts of pig, and much needed sleep follow.

The Abergavenny Arms

Sunday dawns cloudless, and after more pig I'm off again, the ridge continuing Eastwards, then starting to peter out down towards Lewes, and so the Way jags South to join a new ridge line from Newmarket Hill on to Eastbourne.  Walking over the Downs like this it's possible to envisage how they were formed, as the chalk sediments were rucked up and folded under pressure caused by colliding continental plates - actually far away, the plates in question being those of Africa, India and Europe.  Funny to think that these little ripples in the land have the same - still ongoing - cause as the mighty mountains of the Himalayas.  Little ripples are enough for me at the moment, it is still a long slog to reach Berwick for the train back.  At least today I find a pub for lunch, half a mile off the Way though it is.  The Abergavenny Arms in Rodmell is well worth the detour.

Fortified by a couple of pints I stride on, reaching the station with 15 minutes before the next train is due, sadly the pub opposite is shut.  Time to struggle some more with public transport... I'm sure the journey planner said to change at Lewes, but the station looks cold and deserted and I decide to continue to Brighton where surely trains to London will be found.  And indeed when I arrive one is about to leave, except to London Bridge rather than Victoria... well I am sure the ticket inspector won't mind.  As it turns out nobody checks, and I even manage to get another train on to Waterloo where my bike is, result.  So now I have only a little of the Way left to do - 12 miles or so to the finish at Eastbourne, though given there are two alternative routes I'm going to make a weekend of it.  This is planned for a couple of weeks from now, and shockingly I've persuaded other people to come along...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.