Ecstatic Gaucho

Part 2

On our third weekend on the South Downs Way, we reached a momentous juncture – after having crawled across five folds on our map, we finally crossed on to the other side. Luckily, Side B only has three days of walking on it. The second of these – the Sunday – was supposed to be the toughest day of the whole trip – a whopping 20 miles.

More worrying than the hard walk ahead, I was to be possessed by a foul demon. This dark spirit was called Keith. He first came to the attention of the world as the central protagonist in Nuts in May, a lesser known British comedy classic made by Mike Leigh. The film tells of a couple and their summer camping holiday in Dorset. Keith is the highly-strung husband of Candice-Marie, sporting a tweed jacket with a gold Vegetarian Society ‘V’ in its’ lapel. When not dragging his wife off to see the principal local sights, which include some fascinating places such as the local quarry, he spends the holiday on a one-man mission to impose the Countryside Code on the indifferent campers.

Our weekend started at Amberley railway station. A large gang of knobbly-kneed hikers alighted the train and began heading down the trail before us, so we stopped for tea and toast to let them get away. During the course of the weekend we continued to see lots of people; this section of the Way includes many more car parks that allow visitors to take advantage of the Downs. There also seemed to be many more mountain bikers whizzing past. Unlike Hampshire where we walked for a full two days and with only two major roads – one at the start and finish of each weekend slot – this weekend would involve crossing several busy roads. The first, a dual-carriageway without a bridge meant a mad dash across in the gap between the speeding cars.

Once up on the chalky path with the familiar omnipotent view over the Sussex countryside and, like a geeky Mr Hyde, it wasn’t long into our walk before Keith started to manifest himself. Those are some nice looking flowers, I thought, and whipped out my Collins Book of British Wild Flowers to begin classifying. Common Toadflax – grreat! It wasn’t just Keith operating here, I also wanted to know what the writer Robert Byron had been on about in his flower-heavy prose poem All These I Learnt. But then perhaps it was just Keith.

After lunch we came across a round saucer-like earthwork about 50 metres across. A sign announced that the clay-lined depression was a Dew Pond, which was used to collect rainwater for grazing sheep before water could be piped onto the hills. Shortly after, Chanctonbury Ring emerged from the Downs.  First an Iron Age fort and then the site of a Roman temple, and now an area known for UFO sightings, the Ring consists of two circles of low earthen ramparts that rise out of the springy, sheep-nibbled grass on the edge of the Down. The centre of the ring is filled with a mass of small trees and bushes, while larger trees – stretched in wild wind-blown poses – grow out of the earthworks at the edge.

The Way continued along the grassy top of the Downs, until we then turned south to circle around a large natural bowl. A memorial bench looked out over the landscape: sheep, walkers, and para-gliders drifting across the hills.  To the north east, the town of Steyning rested at the foot of the Downs, and to the south east, a huge white L-shaped quarry cut out of the green hillside.

The huge block of Lancing College chapel dominated the horizon to the right on the valley bottom. Steyning is the natural resting point for this stage of the journey, but we’d already decided to press on up the hill alongside the huge quarry. Another mile or two ahead was the Truleigh Hill hostel where, Keith-like, I’d booked two bunks for Autumn and I in the single-sex dorms. It had built up an eccentric ‘youth hostel’ atmosphere even before we got there: when I’d phoned to book our meal, we were offered a starter of either tomato soup or orange juice.

The hostel was in a rectangular 1970s building right on the trail. The corridors in the sleeping quarters smelt of feet, but it was cheap. Staying here also meant we’d already cut three miles off the longest day of the walk that awaited us the next day. The furthest we’d walked so far was 14 miles, and the Steyning to Kingston-near-Lewes section was 20 miles.

Apart from a gang of children and their dads, our fellow guests were not particularly youthful.  They included a grey haired Scottish lady who must have been approaching retirement age, and a large northerner with a loud voice and grey beard. Thankfully, a couple in their thirties who’d travelled down from London in their car with an Aussie mate brought the average age down a bit. The people didn’t wear anoraks or sandals, which made us feel a little less geeky and kept Keith at bay. We ended up sharing a table at dinner with the Scot, who gave us insights into how to make cheap journeys around the country. She was pleased to inform us that she’d travelled down to Sussex from London on the bus for only a pound, and explained that if you are ever travelling north, breaking your train journey in Birmingham can often end up saving you up to half your fare. Our friend tried to persuade Autumn to join our local Youth Hostel Association council after I left the table. It turns out they need more young members as most are over 50.

The next morning was cool and slightly hazy, and we set out under a marbled grey sky. The mountain bikers, joggers and dog walkers were already up. In less than an hour we had reached Devil’s Dyke, a prominent ridge with a pub and valley behind it. A man approached us asking if we’d seen a anyone rolling down a hill in a huge plastic ball. We hadn’t, but once we regained the path we spotted the Zorbing balls being dragged back up the hill on a trailer.

An hour and a motorway later and the path led through the shiny greens of Pyecombe Golf Cours, as slick and well-groomed as a thoroughbred’s haunch. There were now even more people about: dog walkers, families with children, women on horses. There was also litter, and the opportunity to tut disapprovingly.

We ate at Ditchling Beacon and finally left the day trippers behind at a junction of footpaths in the middle of the afternoon. One path offered us a three mile walk into Lewes., and another six and a bit. After six hours walking, a rest was in order. Autumn nibbled an oatcake and I pored over the contour lines. Gallic accents announced the arrival of a Frenchman and his wife and three daughters from the longer narrow path we’d soon be following. A short discussion ensued, culminating with the man snapping “Non, c’est pas la” before striding off up the path. The four women, all sporting identical blond shoulder length hair, followed.

Soon we were walking across a large hillside dotted with grazing sheep. The ripping and chomping of grass filled the air. By this stage, my moans about the rubbish had turned into picking it up. I’d begun stuffing a small box found by the path full of abandoned sweet wrappers. At the bottom of the valley, beside the roaring A27, we stopped for another short break. Despite the traffic roaring only 10 metres from our feet, we both promptly fell into a dream-filled sleep.

Over the road and the valley opened up into another large bowl, with para-gliders once again wafting over the hillside. The path climbs to a sweat-inducing 150 metres in a horseshoe shape, and on the far side of the valley it becomes Juggs Road, which finally leads to Lewes.  Juggs were the baskets of fish that the wives of the Brighton fishermen carried down the path to sell in Lewes market. Although we hadn’t trudged with loads of stinking fish, it was still time for another rest. From this high point the path heads down steeply from the Downs into the village of Kingston-near-Lewes. Another hour’s walk and two more stops and we finally dragged ourselves into the charming town of Lewes. There I could dump my litter, and then go home to wrestle with my demon.

Tags: Amberley, Chanctonbury Ring, Devil's Dyke, Lewes, South Downs Way, Steyning, Truleigh Hill, Wild Flowers

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 26th, 2009 at 12:11 am and is filed under Travel, job hunt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.