Essex Man Does Walking

 Not a good night’s sleep. It rained all night and the noise from the A31 was a constant drone in the background. I got up around 6:30 am, the rain had subsided and that allowed me to get a cup of tea on the go and to heat up one of my Wayfarer All Day Breakfast pouches. There is nothing quite like a mix of beans, sausages, bacon and omelette to get you going in the morning!

We packed up and headed off around 9:00 am, back down the central reservation and across the field to get back to the SDW trail. My feet were soaked by the time we got there! The first part of the walk was not too strenuous heading over a rolling landscape of fields. At about 10:30 we made it to Holden Farm. Originally this is where I had tried to book as it is on the trail but they wanted a minimum 3 nights stay as it was bank holiday weekend. Anyway, they have a lovely cafe there and I had a nice cup of tea and lemon drizzle cake.

We set off again, up a steepish hill towards Windmill Farm and then heading to the left. Towards the next junction we met a couple going in the opposite direction. We had a chat and it turns out they were doing the trail the other way round but they had a break of 2 years in the middle! They didn’t have far to go to the end and we were just beginning. We bade our farewells and turned right past The Milbury’s; a place you can stay if you have a bit of cash. Turning left at the junction we were struck by how many classic cars were passing us. Must have been at least 50 in the next 10 minutes, heading to Goodwood I reckon. The views were really good on this section and we continued along this track before heading off to the right through some woods and up to Lomer Farm. The uphill section started through some really nice country all the way up to Beacon Hill before we started to descend steeply at times towards Exton.

We stopped at The Shoe Inn in Exton, a lovely pub with a garden right next to the river. We ordered some food, I had some Mexican Prawn Tacos which were excellent and Andy had the fish and chips. I dealt with a blister that was starting to develop probably from the walking with wet feet!

All too soon we set off again, down some very dodgy and muddy tracks by a river before starting the ascent of Winchester Hill. This was our first big climb going from about 220 feet above sea level to 646 feet, slowly at first but very steeply towards the summit. Thank God that my wife had bought me some hiking poles for Christmas.
It is not the sort of thing I would buy myself but they were very handy and really helped. The views were great at the top and we walked along the top for a bit before heading down slowly beside a road along a very muddy trail. 

At the end of the trail we descended steeply and headed towards Meon Springs. Looked like a very nice place where you can go fishing and enjoy food and drink in a nice cafe. We walked along a road for a bit, turning left between some fields before turning right into Coombe Cross. It was here that we started a climb towards the top of Salt Hill which was really steep with a summit 758 feet above sea level. Thankfully it then headed down towards our destination at the Sustainability Centre.

Andy had decided that he was going to leave that afternoon rather than next morning. Didn’t blame him considering the lack of sleep we had the night before. So I was left to set up camp and cook some noodles before phoning home. 

The Sustainability Centre was very nice with eco friendly Compost toilets but thankfully normal showers! I had a short wander around before settling down to get some sleep.

Distance: 15.63 miles

Ascent: 1773 feet