South Downs way: day 2,3,4 Holden to Wetherdown to Copper Beeches to Graffham

Day 2

I wake to rain.

Off at nine heavy legs but my bag’s a little bit smaller. ‘Going all the way?’, a gentleman ‘enjoy every minute of it’. Made me smile. And I am enjoying it , even though my little toe hurts, and the trees keep dropping water in my face. The rain’s pretty faint now, but clouds are thick and low. Flint is a very beautiful stone to think it was sea sponges (I think) seems mad. Road walking- thick green hedges on either side. Waterproofs are soon off. There is quite a lot of ash but it’s pretty mixed. The South Downs way has excellent set up of drinking water taps- they tell you where the next one is. I pass the site of the medieval Lomer village. I sit on a root in the beacon hill car park to rest my feet but the rain starts up again so I’m off. Though the clouds are low there is a pretty glow in the fields, as if the yellow were luminous. It’s actually beautiful - mysterious. The fields roll over yellow and green and disparare into cloud. Sepearated from the bridle way The walkers path runs down a field. I can see the route stretching across the valley. Once the rain has stopped again, I stop to sit on a style it’s quite. The fields here are huge. Another group come along so I’m on again, Into exton, then crossing the shallow Meon. I am bored very footsore and tired in the very long slog up to Old Winchester hill (apparently the site of a fort predating the Iron Age). It’s beautiful and windy on the top - but I don’t think I’ll be getting the promised view of the isle of white. The clouds roll over me just off the ground. The visabilities as little as 30m. Magical. It must have been hard living up here in the hill fort, there dead buried amount them in barrow tumulus that make the summit of the hill. . The grass is teaming with yellow and purple flowers. I trudge round the ridge, passing all the nice benches, then suddenly have an incredible view back of the whole hill fort from the side. It looks spectacular, with the fortifications and tumult crisply visible. The music in my headphones (SM 409 13) matches the view. After missing all the nice benches the picnic area fails To materialise so eventually I plonked on a clearerd area and ate my

Tuna and pita in the rain, pretty grim. At meon sprigs farm swarms of birds are swooopoohing overhead - Swifts, or swallows, or starlings. I’m dazed out enough to listen to economics podcasts climbing salt hill - takes forever (might be the economics making it seem longer, or the foot pain, or the pouring rain) until descend to Wether down (certainly got weather). There’s no one at the camp reception but I’ve payed so set up cautiously in the rain- my tent keeps coming down as the grounds bad. My waterproofs are soaked through. There’s a guy tarp camping who I talk to - and eat dinner with under the same shelter. Thankfully the rain stops after my shower (which amazingly was warm even though it was solar heated. My pasta doesn’t soften properly but I can’t be bothered to reboil it. It clears up so much that there’s blue sky by 7- a man staying in one of the yurts sees me stuffing my shoes with green paper and offers to put them by the fire in their yurt, which is very kind- boot drying services! Later I wander the site. There’s a bushcraft teaching area in some orangy beech wood. After I get in my tent It starts pouting torrentially. I’m going to give myself another hour in bed tommorrow. I’ll need to get to the loo sometime, hope this rain passes.

I lie there, with it pounding thick on my tent. All I can think of is Edward Thomas’ poem Rain- It makes me melancholy- it was a hard day, my feet murdered and the rain soaked through my waterproof, and I’m tired, but I am also quite fine, here under my tent with the rain pouring rivers above me. Helpless among the living and the dead

Day 3

I get up at 8, half pack and try wiping out the inside of my tent. The arm of my puffy jackets wet- Alex would give me a lecture. I collect my shoes from the yurt family- they even took out the insoles to dry them , brave. . My clothes have not dried at all. The tarp guys left his book in the toilet. The sun pokes out for a short time warming me. I wish it could reach my drying. Why do I have seven rehydration sachets in my first and kit? A lady tells me that the screams I heard last night were owls. It’s heading 10:30 when I set off - slow! I skip the cafe- through its apparently amazing- clearly popular with cyclists anyway . My left toe still hurts even though it’s wrapped to oblivion. The other wrappings seem affective. My bag feel more comfortable at the moment. Come in to a pretty view with East Meon church below. Passing through the edge of Hyden woods which are actually beautiful - ancient beeches lean over the track. But the woods are much more mixed than in the cotswolds- hazel, birch, sycamore, so the undergrowth is denser and the woods darker. My brain hurts. It will be warm today, unless those clouds come in. I felt cold last night. A couple, van parked by the road summit with beautiful views. , are cooking burgers, the smell makes me hungry. Buster hill nature reserve is stunning, and is that, it must be, the sea! That must be Southampton and Portsmouth . And I think i can see big tanker ships out between the gap- presumably some of that land is the Isle of white. The wide slopping descent is surrounded by short meadow flowers. Horse riders run over the pale paths. If not for the busy toad (and desperately needing the toilet) it would be as prefect a place as could imagine. But I hurry aloNG to get to the Queen Elizabeth country park visitor centre, stupidly having missed the buster park place- a shame because I can’t enjoy this wonderful hill as I should. ). I enjoy the shade passing under the A3. The visitor centre is like a posher version of Coed y Brenin. When I sit down the table next to me is a group of runners who recognise me: this morninng there dog was very confused and panicked by my wearing a backpack. The problem with a jacket Potato is that it’s hard to make the quantum of topping last as long as the amount of potato, also I keep cutting through the bottom of my card dish where the table has gaps. I regret getting a soy latte- less chance of tummy problems but tastes bad. I sit for a long time - just day dreaming, and people watching. Off again- into the woods. I like at the start there’s a (presumably near to scale) planet walk, then I go past an area with pretty serious shelter building. The one we tried doing in Wales years ago seems pathetic compared to these. More beech but mixed with pine. I love woods, so much, but rarely can I find a wood where you can’t see the end of it. I’m thinking about Edward Thomas, and Robert Macfarlane sleeping in this wood in Old Ways.

I walk on, out of the woods, along tracks and then roads, lo n long way- there’s a curving avenue of purple trees lining the road to Sunwood Farm. Once there I find my turn off track towards Copper beeches. It’s overgrown bit clear enough, at least the nettles seems near the ends of their lives. I take a lovely quiet track to shortcut then along a B road for a bit (which is wide enough to be fine) I arrive at copper beaches with 4 minutes to go (‘arrival from 4’). No one answers the door, so I sit outside for a bit. I hate the feeling waiting when you’ve no idea how long. After 20 minutes I phone, no response, then get a phone back- Janet ‘id forgotten all about it’. At least it’s not raining, and I’m glad she answered or might have been here a long while! She shows me into the garden, and the downstairs bathroom. I set up my tent, and then a washi N line to get stuff airing while the suns out. I wash my socks and myself as much as I can, but this is the best day to not have a shower. I am so thankful the sun is holding on, even behind a layer of clouds. I’ll leave stuff to air as long as possible. Now to dinner. THere’s a smell around my tent - presumably chicken poo. Oh well. My tea is rubbish, pasta doesn’t cook properly and the chicken casserole powder sauce is so strong- I get pain while eating. I dilute the sauce and get it all down. I’m tired and not looking forward to the next two days, however once there over it should be better.

Day 4

Thankfully the geese went to bed early last night. The cockerel however didn’t have a lie in. There’s a Chinese poem that goes something like: I woke to the sound of morning rain, ...I wonder how many blossoms fell this night . I felt very sick last night for a bit . My period started:(. I’m packed away by eight for breakfast: a big feast with home grown potatoes and duck eggs, outside in the drizzle. Oscar the dog looks longingly at my plate. Off: what had been beautiful sunny fields yesterday are now a lot greyer. But there are blue sky , then sun breaks on the next field then a crisply clear full rainbow then grey again. I’m into the wooded slope by nine. Then up and out into a field of bright yellow- is it oil seed rape still in flower? (Probably not, its much shorter). The hills on the horizon are swathed in cloud. I retrace a mistake and join the South Downs way. There are a lot of birds about. No people. I stop to take ibuprofen then climb the hull. Impressive views from harting down: a green copper spited church, the ruins of a tower folly, rolling wheat fields, woods in ‘the weAld’, and the chalk path over the down. Robert macfarlane wrote about the sensation of flying over the South Downs. I can understand it , with the rolled expanse and running clouds, but It’s hard to feel like your flying when your bag drags you down. Then the rain rolls in agin. I ‘short cut’ the sdw by climbing straight up beacon hill- I thank the cold wind for cooling me in my (and my calves) waterproofs. It’s a shame because the view from the summit must be brilliant, but there again is the sea, grey as the sky is grey- it’s so odd for me, coming across the sea when the land seems so inland. There’s a small pile of stones (and someone’s left hotel pens in the trig point) near the summit so I make a small cAirn on top of Th w topograph. A worthy short cut. The clouds lift as I take photographs and the wind blows steady, I start singing. The tune Somewhere over the rainbow plays through the tune. And wayfaring stranger rolls over and over. My spirits have lifted- maybe if I where just a little lighter I could jump and the wind would fly me over the white rolling path. I feel so high up. Onwards

Whereas in the cotswolds the climbs are all concave due to the slope erosion , here they’re smooth and convex - less dramatic but more satisfying (trying to memorise f’’(x)<0 comes to mind- I could imagine our textbook inventing such questions question:‘Jocelyn needs to cycle up a hill that is modelled by the equation...’). In woods I pass a tiny but decorated war memorial to ww2 naval soldier “the sea shall not have them”. Then pass ‘devils jump’ burial barrows (3000 year old aligned for midsummer sunset. Huge yews- I’ve never seen yews grownung like they do here, blood red where they’ve been cut. There’s a long track stretch surrounded by spicky twisted mossy trees , and the tall fence of monkton house on one side , I’m not sure what sense it gives but a strange one, nearly gothic- uncanny. Absolutely empty of other life save the plants and me. But I like it, in its sullenness (and rain protection), Shame to leave into the open. Sudden quieting. Only the wind and the squeak of birds back in the trees. Looking back I can see the black hole in Athe trees where I left. Striding in over the downs: up above the land. I love this wind, keeping me cool - though it is not cold either, warm and northerly - out from the sea? Fields full of delicate cow parsley nod in it. And then I look back again- and exclaim in my head-, the black hole in the trees is so far away. Later I have lunch next to a huge stone of chalk, rain starts again as I finish. A woman goes by with a huge rucksack under a blue plastic rain coat and two dogs both wearing there own little yellow waterproofed rucksacks. My feet hurt as I start up again, the amazingly I haven’t had any blister pain at all so far. Long Trudge down to the a road. I am thankful for a water tap as I managed to pour most my remaining on the floor. Long trudge up from the a roadb the rain is pouring - or I’m inside a cloud. Crows flap in and out my vision, landi n an fence posts, picking at the field. I wear my wide brimmed hat over my hood to keep it up, and keep the rain away. On the same path for many Km a, trees give shelter for a bit. It’s not great but it’s not terrible either: the rain isn’t heavy like in day 2 but persistent fine drizzle. A useful you are here sign makes my discussion for the way down to graffham, I take the gentler byway. When I enter the village there’s a small open building that looks like an abandoned chapel and I take shelter n for a bit. It’s a fairly nice village but very long. At the store I buy chocolates and an almond milk hot chocolate that I drink under the cover. Drink finished I walk on, hoping that Woddfire campo n is at the site maps.me promises, footpaths and woods and tracks , and where my pin is seems unpromising. Google maps shows it further along the road so again I plod on. Site of tents on the next rise so head on. At the entrance I ask a women if this is wood fire, it is, turns out she’s the one I spoke to on the phone (and fortunately I happened to arrive at the same side. She was on) Although the plan had been that she showed me to a nervous to camp there (they where ‘too full’), she dicided i can camp here after all, so I pay the awfully bad value of £19 (no chance to debate it down here). I set up. The rain has stopped completely though It’s very windy but at least the ground is good to hold my legs firmly , though t he tent blows and bubble up. I use a peg to set a drying line, Han g stuff to air then head to get my £19 worth out of the shower. Later I cook my pasta (actually manage to cook it fully this time) and eat in my tent. Children are playing all around my tent. The sky is pretty beautiful with high wispy clouds, but it’s being covered again by a dark blanket rolling in. The moon, a perfect half, skims the border with the big cloud, it is such a beautiful white against the bright blue. I use the hot tap to make my hot (tepid) chocolate, sort all my stuff, edit blog, and soon to bed (late- and will be up early tomorrow too, oh well plenty of time to sleep later)