Training Walk V (72km South Downs/Tring double-header) .... Like A Hurricane

Two days walking in different locations; this is the walking equivalent of the two centre holiday, assuming your two centres are Srebrenica and South Central LA.

Day 1 - South Downs Way
Today's walk is designed to cover some of the real South Downs Trailwalker route to get familiar with the section that we'll be walking in the dark in July. The theory is that we're less likely to get lost if we've seen the ground before. There's absolutely nothing worse than having to backtrack a couple of miles or running the risk of being carried off by big sweaty bears, just because we got lost. OK, listening to Boyzone's Greatest Hits is worse, but I'm hoping that won't be a problem on a long distance footpath in Sussex at three in the morning. If we do see Ronan Keating warming up for a rendition of No Matter What we can always smother him with my Cag-in-a-Bag. Breathable fabric?  I don't think so Ronan.

We kick off midmorning with a rendezvous at Matt's house and a nervous peek at the weather forecast. There are amber warnings of rain and gales in the south, so heading off to the south seems somewhat foolish. It's probably too much to hope that the "occasional" sunny intervals have an occasion that lasts nine hours, so we've packed waterproof everything. Even Pete's chicken drumsticks have a Gore-Tex-Mex coating.

The plan is for Derek to drive us down towards Brighton and park up at Trailwalker Checkpoint 8. We then head to Checkpoint 9, back to 8, then to 7 and finish up at 8. [Ed. No I don't understand it either]. The idea is that we can leave kit in the car and pick it up as we pass Checkpoint 8 later in the walk. The confusing itinerary should also help to give Irish boy bands the slip in the event that Stephen Gately is miraculously resurrected for a comeback tour. Unfortunately this to and fro direction changing means that half of the directions from the Trailwalker have to be read backwards.
"Road slip along left turn and road concrete follow"
What?

When we arrive at Checkpoint 8, it's almost impossible to get the car doors open because of the wind. At least the view is very nice when your eyes stop watering and the windmills (Jack & Jill) are both impressive. I assume they're not going round due to broken crowns, tumbling after or the wrong kind of wind.
Ask the expert #8 : Why are the windmills called Jack & Jill
- The windmills were probably first given the names of Jack and Jill by day trippers, taking the train from London to Brighton in the late 1920s.
Of course the first job is to get some calories on board, but it's difficult to find somewhere where you don't have to lean at 45 degrees to avoid being blown off the hill. By lying on a damp grassy bank we get out of the worst of the wind, but the environment is not exactly conducive to the fine dining experience that we've come to expect from a cheese butty and some sweaty chicken satay.

As we get going we see the first of many crazy individuals who are doing some long distance running activity over the downs. There are also a few teams of walkers clutching the same photocopied instructions as us. We try to get a sense of their strategy and technique, but they're walking so much faster than us that it's difficult to see how we could actually be taking part in the same event.

We're overtaken by a boy/girl running duo who Derek swears passed us on a previous walk in the Chilterns. Given that we've already been lapped by a bearded lady on a Shopmobility scooter and two under fives in a pantomime Shetland pony costume we shouldn't be too surprised.

Boyzone road crew move the Blackcap trig point

Although the path is pretty straight we nearly come unstuck a couple of times and fall into the trap of trying to read the Trailwalker instructions, look at the blurry Trailwalker handout map and follow the OS 1:50000 map all at the same time. We take the wrong path at Blackcap, which is fine in the daylight, but could be catastrophic at night. I blame Louis Walsh and his "Trailwalker Detour --->" signs.

At least the terrain is pretty reasonable at this point although some of the tracks have pretty serious puddles. How it'll look in the dark with a few more weeks of English summer thrown at it remains to be seen. It also takes a bit of a hammering from mountain bikes.

The sun is trying its best to outdo the clouds and the wind is mostly behind us, so we're able to make decent time.

The route descends and the path gets much narrower and quite boggy. We make a mental note to particularly not enjoy this bit when we come to it on the 15th. This is of course assuming we actually make it this far. When we get to Lewes prison there's a great opportunity to go wrong because the path almost doubles back and this could be disastrous.

The sun has come out properly now and it's actually pretty warm in the shelter of the valley. There is no real evidence of what checkpoint will look like, so we keep going past yet another windmill which has been desailed. We wander down a private road and almost end up in somebody's garden. Matt lies with his feet in the air which he reckons helps his feet and legs. Howard changes his socks (again), while Pete and Derek investigate the contents of various pastry products.

Matt spots a sheep being blown past

On the way back a number of things happen. It gets cold, the sun goes in, the wind from the channel notches its way to the previously unknown 13 on the Beaufort scale

Beaufort 10 [Storm, whole gale] = Trees are broken off or uprooted, saplings bent and deformed. Poorly attached asphalt shingles and shingles in poor condition peel off roofs.

Beaufort 13 [Apocalyptic wind] = Utter devastation. Forests are disintegrated into their component molecules. Whole towns are ripped from the soil and carried to the moon. Walkers experience unpleasant flapping of their waterproofs.

At Ditchling Beacon, a cyclist who has slogged his way up the hill, is struggling to avoid being blown back down again and is contemplating suicide by falling on his pump.

Pete and Derek raid the ice cream van for anything that isn't frozen and after a break we head off again.

Back at the car, Derek decides that his knee isn't going to hold up for another ten miles and contemplates the alternatives ....
- Sitting in a warm car reading a book
- Sitting in a warm pub watching the football
- Sitting in his warm sister-in-law's house (the house is warm, not necessarily the sister-in-law) drinking tea
Needless to say, walking into a gale with a dodgy knee doesn't get much of a look in. After fighting their way out of the car, Howard, Matt and Pete head off towards the aptly named Devil's Dyke. It's now getting starting to get dark.

At least it can't get any worse ....

It starts to rain.

As the rain turns to stinging hail, Matt remembers a time during his chuildhood when he accidentally stood in front of a pebble-dashing machine. We briefly warm ourselves in the cosy warmth of nostalgia and put all our spare clothes and waterproof trousers on.

It stops raining.

We think we can see the lights of Brighton in the distance, although it's difficult to tell with Pete's hair in your eyes. In a quaint NT farm we are worried by some rare breed sheep with a baaaaad attitude and those curly horns that look like they are just aching to give you a nasty bruise. We make it safely to Devil's Dyke or at least we wander into an empty field that claims to be Checkpoint 7 in a future life.

It's time to turn around and go back and now that we're heading east with the wind behind us, the wind seems to have dropped. Pete jogs down the hill in his pretend fancy dress gecko-on-a-horse outfit. Delirium is starting to kick in, but the warm fuzzy glow of the Plough at Pyecombe is encouraging us home. We meet Derek who has spent the late afternoon with his sister-in-law (who turns out to be quite a normal temperature). A very nice pint of Dark Star Hophead slips down nicely, as we discuss the ups and downs of the day before Derek drives us all back. Pete picks up his car and is last to bed just before one in the morning.

Day 2 - Chilterns

The Hollywood film version :
Drrr-Drrr-Drrr-Drrr
The alarm goes off bright and early. Howard springs from his bed and is just glad to be alive. What a great day to go for a 20 mile walk.

The grim reality version :
Drrr-Drrr-Drrr-Drrr
The alarm goes off at the ungodly hour of 5 o'clock. Howard reaches over and knocks over his glass of water, fails to connect with the alarm clock (Drrr-Drrr-Drrr-Drrr), throws something in its general direction, and finally silences it by sweeping everything off the bedside table into the puddle of water on the bedroom floor. He suddenly becomes aware that someone has replaced his leg muscles with piano wire. "Good job we haven't planned to do another stupid walk today ...... arrrggghhhhh".

The only small crumb of comfort is that we've seen most of it before, so getting lost shouldn't be a problem. In fact we aren't going to be walking fast enough to get lost.

We start off at Startop's reservoir near Marsworth, and the car park is deserted. No dogs, anglers or super strength cider drinkers (apart from us obviously).



Things to see in Marsworth (Part I)
(from left to right) Heron, Grass, Mallards, Swans, Sun, Digger

We pass some anglers on the bank, who follow normal angling protocol; wave rod around to inconvenience civvies, adjust keep net and at all times avoid eye contact.
Some fleecy clouds float gently across the sky and we wade through a field of mud that the farmer wanted to be crops, but is playing agriculturally hard to get.

Muscles seem to have eased a little now until it's time to climb up to Wendover Woods again. The cafe is nearly open, but after a quick Penelope we keep on moving. Pete starts to have pork withdrawal symptoms, but we promise him that he'll get some cold turkey later.

Much of the route this morning is stuff we've done before. The Bridgewater monument is exactly where we left it, although there's a large lake where we previously encountered Mr Rotivator.

We go past the Hastoe road sign for the third time on our travels. It's an opportunity to take stock of the situation, change socks and moan about the state of our feet.

Pete's sylph-like figure is completely hidden behind the road sign
Only his enormous arse gives him away

At Tring station, the conversation naturally turns to the subject of visits to relatives and the stuff you ate while you were there. Apart from Mateus rose and excellent runner beans, there was the Mock Turtle soup incident. Something that is still not talked about to this day in the Bishop household. It's just a good job I never knew what was in it.

Ask the expert #3,653 - What is Mock Turtle soup
- It isn't made out of mock turtles, but it is supposed to taste like green turtles

Howard makes a note to bring some along for the walk.

Mrs. Fowle's Mock Turtle Soup : "Take a large calf's head. Scald off the hair. Boil it until the horn is tender, then cut it into slices about the size of your finger, with as little lean as possible. Have ready three pints of good mutton or veal broth, put in it half a pint of Madeira wine, half a teaspoonful of thyme, pepper, a large onion, and the peel of a lemon chop't very small. A ¼ of a pint of oysters chop't very small, and their liquor; a little salt, the juice of two large onions, some sweet herbs, and the brains chop't. Stand all these together for about an hour, and send it up to the table with the forcemeat balls made small and the yolks of hard eggs."

Howard's Mock Turtle Soup : "Take some tomato soup, heat and serve"

There's a good reason why Heinz don't make Mock Turtle Soup isn't there Mrs Fowle?

We get within falling over distance of Ivinghoe Beacon then veer off towards Ivinghoe itself. Feet and legs are now really starting to hurt, especially once we get on the hard pavement. We see what might be a Spitfire going through its paces in the distance, which briefly takes our minds off unpleasantness down below. We up the pace just to get the thing finished, but are almost overtaken by a narrow boat. The prospect of a cool one at the Angler's Retreat finally pulls us over the finishing line.

We've done 46 miles in a smidge over 24 hours, but that's over 16 miles shy of the target AND we had a sleep in the middle. Every silver lining has a cloud.