The North Downs Way; Training Day 1

Now it gets serious! The climate has changed, the scenery has changed and I am carrying a full pack. All of these changes were enough to remind me that I am back home and the clock is ticking. The only upside was that I was accompanied for 20 delightful kilometres by my lovely daughter Marion, who is a sympathetic and long-suffering listener. She absorbed hour after hour of me talking my head off without ever complaining. I was so engrossed, I hardly noticed the change of environment, or more importantly, the presence of the heavy pack.

She did though, make the point that I should leave my electronics behind during these early training trips, to limit the weight of the pack. I took her advice and found that without my Asus Netbook and all of my chargers, my pack was 2 kilograms lighter, which was substantial. Then she came up with the idea that I should acquire an Apple iPad 2, which she assures me will be much lighter than the Asus and will have additional apps on it that I might find useful during the journey. Veronica looked sardonic when she heard that her gadget-man had found this to be an enticing idea, but I will not be so easily put off! So, it’s off to Regent Street on Wednesday and the main Apple store, and who knows what might transpire? My sole concern is that I am not confident that all my gadgets and technology will seamlessly transfer to Apple, whatever they say in the shop, but we shall see.

But first, I have to make it through tomorrow, hopefully without blisters or more serious strains. I’m feeling a bit stiff as I write this, but nothing that I won’t be able to walk off. And today really was stimulating! A subtle change of colour from brown to green, soft rolling hills rather than mountains and of course plenty of people! I knew I was back in England when suddenly an old gent in rather smart rural clothes came running out of the woods at full tilt with his dog in tow, yelling at us: “Did you see the buzzards? Did you see them? The crows are chasing them, look there!” and he pointed skywards to a fast disappearing black speck. He demanded to know from us whether buzzards were migratory, and having received no satisfactory response, he opined that he thought they were, but then what the blazes were they doing here in Surrey, being chased by crows? Muttering to himself, he took off in the opposite direction in great haste with his rather exhausted dog in hot pursuit!

A while earlier, we had found ourselves in a delightfully named pub, “The Good Intent”, and as I was gratefully lowering my pack to the ground, one of the patrons saw my satnav gadget and demanded to know whether it was a Garmin, and if so which model?  I gave him the details, and he told me that he had one himself, and rather dramatically that it had just saved his life! Apparently, he has just returned from Libya where he was working as a Seismic Geologist and he was told by his Oil Company superiors to leave by any route, but not, for obvious reasons, via the main towns. He recalled that he had previously recorded a route from a neighbouring country through the Sahara on the Garmin and he found it was still there. He just followed the bread-crumb trail and it took him to safety. Now he was enjoying a pint of bitter in this English pub with his mate!

The deserted trails of the Kogelberg will never be forgotten, but if I continue to meet delightful and slightly eccentric people along my LEJOG path, it will be a reasonable exchange.

Now to see whether I can keep up the pace tomorrow!

Marion and I in Guildford at the start.

The sculpture signifying, rather mysteriously, the start of the North Downs Way

And since this is England, no Klipspringers, but instead, Llamas! (Would you believe?)

Green replaces brown!

The early buds of March!

Exquisite parkland!

And soppy poetry to go with it! This picture was taken very close to the golden ford from which Guildford got its name, because of the wild, golden Marigolds that grew there. Or so they say!