Training Day 5: Oxted to Knockholt Pound

Excellent breakfast, good chat with the proprietor, Helen, in which we swopped details about our offsprung (heavy competition there; an outsider would have called it a draw, but might perhaps have raised one or two sceptical eyebrows?), and then it was off up to the NDW. My guidebook had suggested that the way back up to the path was less onerous than the way down the night before. I was doubtful about this, but in fact it was right. Perhaps a good night’s sleep and fresh legs made a difference.

I crossed the M25 for the third time this trip, and was struck yet again by what an enormous, howling, vicious monster it is, when seen from a footbridge above. I had a sensation of masculine hormones run wild and sheer, undiluted aggression. How different from inside a car, where the overwhelming sensation is one of boredom punctuated by frustration.  A good friend of mine has even refused to walk the NDW with me on account of the noise it makes, and it is certainly true that it bisects one of the more beautiful valleys of Surrey in a never-ending snarl of traffic.

Today though, I had other distractions. The first would appeal only to a nerd like me, but I was positively looking forward to crossing the Greenwich Meridian; to have one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere and one foot in the West. My guidebook even remarked that there was a plaque, presented by the county council, marking the exact line. How very disappointing then, for me to discover that they had put the plaque in the wrong place!  My Garmin Etrex informed me, once I had converted the read-out from the British Ordnance Survey Grid to old-fashioned Longitude and Latitude, that the actual meridian was some 150m to the East! They must have been using some other cartographic system, or perhaps they were just less accurate in those pre-GPS days. Anyway, I edged my way to the East and took a picture at exactly 00 0’ 0.000”, with an accuracy of plus or minus 3 metres, which even if I really do the splits I can’t really manage! So, did I did get a foot in each hemisphere? Maybe! (It would of course be easier to go to Greenwich!)

Hardly had this feat been achieved than after a heavy climb, I decided to take a short rest a little off the beaten track where I hoped to get a good view of the valley below the Downs. Indeed I found an excellent viewpoint, giving wonderful views of Titsey Place below. This estate was originally owned by Sir John Gresham in the 1500s, and I understand that Sir John actually saved the country from bankruptcy in the ruinously expensive wars during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth 1. He was a member of one of the most important merchant dynasties of the 16th century, making pots of money from the Middle East and Russia (as one does!), and he used his new wealth to buy up estates that had become less expensive as a result of the market collapse following Henry’s confiscation of church lands. He bought the manors of Titsey, Tatsfield, Westerham, Lingfield and Sanderstead on the Kent-Surrey borders as well as other properties in Norfolk and Buckinghamshire. He clearly believed in the property market.  No wonder Titsey itself survived intact to the present day, feeding off the proceeds of the other estates to fund its way. I also discovered that the Titsey family motto is “Franges, non Flectes” (“Bend but do not break!”).  I have decided that this is precisely the right motto for my LEJOG!

Anyway, while I was gazing down at Titsey, I met Jerry who was aimlessly throwing a stick for his retriever, Bailey, whose job it was to rush down the steepest of slopes to do as his breed suggests. I found out that Jerry was a retired mechanical engineer who had worked at the nuclear power plant at Dounreay in Scotland, not so far from John O’Groats.

Jerry remarked that this was the bleakest place he had ever seen, which is not so encouraging, but more interestingly, under persistent questioning, he told me that the site had been originally selected for the PFR (Prototype Fast Reactor), and at the time (and this has apparently only recently been declassified), they were not completely sure that the reactor wouldn’t overheat under some circumstances, with cataclysmic results. Accordingly, the reactor was sited on a gently sloping geological formation which ran uninterrupted deep into the North Sea. It was designed as a perfect sphere, not just to contain pressure, but mainly because it was attached to its surroundings by fixings which in extreme circumstances, could explosively be detonated, with the result that the whole catastrophe would roll gently into the sea and just keep on rolling right to the bottom, where it would be some future generation’s problem!  Imagine if this had been public knowledge! After all, it was barely 10 years later that Shell was pulverised for their attempt to sink the totally inert Brent Spar in mid-Atlantic!!

Of course I have no idea whether Jerry tells every gullible would-be LEJOGer this story, and I certainly haven’t been able to check it out in detail, though there are many references to doubts amongst the design engineers as to whether runaway nuclear reaction might be possible at the Dounreay PWR. If Jerry’s account is true, it is some story! Puts the whole Japanese nuclear trouble in a different light!

Now, to practical things. Firstly I still have heaps of preparations to do, so all this walking and blogging will have to take a back seat while I finally get my walking house in order. Accordingly, this will be my last blog until I arrive at Land’s End for the start of LEJOG. I continue to welcome any and all suggestions during this time, and by all means, do feel free to use the comments facilities that follow each of these posts if you would like to share your views more widely. I do understand that some folk have had difficulty getting their comments accepted. The easiest way is to register with Blogger itself and then use your Blogger profile to log in to comment. This process is aimed at stopping spammers and other nasties from getting access. But feel free just to email me if you prefer.

If you have made it this far, I am really grateful for your interest.   I look forward with huge anticipation to what I now know is going to be the hardest thing I have ever tried to do, and to sharing it all with you.  I have no idea whether I will succeed, but the first hurdle comes tomorrow. I am off to see my consultant urologist to get his opinion on whether my health is sufficient to justify even starting out!

Please wish me good luck!!

The dreaded M25. With excellent timing, I caught it empty and the little local cross road stuffed!

Some address!

So, this is the plaque claiming it is at the meridian....

And here is the proof that it isn't!

And here is the real deal!

 

Interestingly, there was no bull, but I was fascinated to note that there was no such sign at the opposite entrance to the field. 50/50, then! You take your chances!

Titsey Place. If you look really carefully, you can just see the house on the left. Poor picture!

At this part of the NDW, there is some really high value property, south facing, looking down on the superb Surrey valley below. This is serious money...

which needs serious protection! But obviously they also have a higher class of burglar! The crackheads and yobs where I live wouldn't even know what this sign means!

And so to my final destination on the NDW. Also, Veronica's camera has expired, hence the strange colour cast. Yet another task to attend to before I set out on LEJOG! I will have to buy a new one (Yeah!!).

Training Day 4: Reigate Hill to Oxted

So this is what it is going to be like! For 90 days or more!  I’m sitting in a cheap pub, drinking a well-earned beer in the town of Oxted, having walked 20km today with full pack. There isn’t a muscle in my body that isn’t complaining. I booked into the B&B which I found not without a little difficulty, despite two electronic devices pointing the way, but my hostess has cunningly disguised her establishment so there are no identifying marks at all, a rather poor marketing strategy. Fortunately, I cut such a disreputable, not to say desperate, figure, staggering down the suburban road, that I excited the interest of an elderly lady who knows everything and kindly directed me to the exact address without my even asking her!

This is my first B&B for quite some time. I had all but forgotten, but I have a curious relationship with these places. I figured it out in the bath. The problem is one doesn’t know who is in charge. I’m the customer, so surely it is I? But then it is her house and all her stuff, so surely she is the boss?  So either we both think we call the shots, in which case there is a clash, or we both defer to the other, in which case there is an endless circling and bowing with neither quite knowing the way out. I resolved therefore that the most appropriate solution will be for me to observe closely the behaviour of all future proprietors and then to assume the opposite role.  This should result in endlessly harmonious relationships.  I will report on the success of this strategy in due course!

I keep having to remember I am in Oxted, which is most unlikely to be typical of the places through which I will be travelling in the months ahead. It is an intensely suburban, dormitory sort of place just outside the M25, where the station is the most important building in town, because that is where everybody goes every morning before leaving for London.  It is very ordered, very rich, slightly antiseptic and rather impersonal. I can’t imagine striking up a conversation with anyone in this pub.  Everyone seems to have a Potteresque invisibility cloak draped around them, but in their case it also prevents them from seeing anything outside their circle….

Believe it or not, I have just noticed that the pub has a direct view onto the station! I’ve just seen the 19:20 to London stop at Platform 1 (of course!).  Which reminds me!  I did a little research earlier and I understand that more than 1 million people visit Box Hill every year. So, not the Kogelberg, then!!  Anyway, as I walked along, I figured that this equated to roughly 3,000 people per day. But obviously, the distribution is not even. More people would go there of a weekend. And most people would prefer to go there on a sunny day, such as yesterday, and particularly on an early spring day after having been cooped up indoors through the winter. So I figure that between 5,000 and 10,000 people went to Box Hill yesterday, and not one of them stole my ear-phones! Just what are the chances that there isn’t even a casual thief amongst a group of 5,000 or more people?  You will say I was just lucky, but I will argue that the odds are simply astonishing!  It’s one of the reasons I like this place so much, even if one has to accept a little antiseptic!

Training Day 3: Ranmore Common to Reigate Hill

This is turning from a travelogue into a whodunit!  I started the first leg of my three day training stint on a Sunday, convinced that all of London would have taken to the Downs and I would see an endless mass of faceless and incommunicative commuters, out to catch a glimpse of a watery sun before returning to their daily grind. Not so!

To begin with, nothing much happened, other than an encounter with a rather rude couple of cyclists who nearly forced me into a ditch. I harrumphed and complained to myself and then decided to focus instead on the early spring growth which is now becoming ever more apparent, until I chanced upon a rather delightful lady, taking a photo of a Chiffchaff, high in the trees above us. I was unreservedly positive about her endeavour with the result that we struck up a rather unexpected conversation.  She demanded to know why I was looking so professional, complete with pack, water-bottle and guide-book, so of course I explained LEJOG to her. She was evidently much impressed and to my utter amazement, she told me that the previous day she had chanced to meet a fellow with a huge pack, who slept rough in the woods and who was on his way to Eastbourne! It had to be John!! I interrogated her for some time and convinced myself that indeed, she had come across John, who she felt was only a little more barmy than me!

Our conversation turned to her dog, a rather delightful, if slightly overweight terrier, and finally to the whole issue of travelling alone. We agreed that this conversation would never have happened if we had been in company, which is certainly true, though I was rather startled by her next assertion that this was precisely why she felt that she never wanted to marry.  Too much baggage and what is more, an impediment to the meeting of chance strangers in the woods. We parted soon afterwards, with me silently thanking my lucky stars that Veronica is not of this opinion, and marvelling that a chance encounter could elicit such intimate information....

A little further along the track, I was suddenly accosted by a cyclist who skidded to a halt in front of me and demanded to know whether there were any policemen in the direction I had come from. I told him I hadn’t seen any and he informed me that the path he had been on was most irritatingly closed because a couple of rather rude coppers had insisted that they were looking for a vagrant who was reportedly sleeping rough in the woods. The description included grey hair and a very large pack!!  It can only have been John!  It was all I could do to restrain myself from heading into the bush to find him and to warn him that the law was after him! Until I reflected that he had surely been in this sort of a scrape before, and I couldn’t imagine that a short trip to the slammer would in any way have impacted the behaviour of a man who had spent twenty years living on the trails. I doubt that the city slickers ever found him! Seems I am going native already.

Talking of which, I was puffing up Box Hill, which is by my standards, quite a climb when I passed a couple of City folk heading downwards. I sang out the obligatory “Good Morning!” in my very best English accent, only to be greeted with a response to the effect that my map simply wasn’t comprehensive enough to have guided me for eight thousand miles! He had sussed my Suf Efrikan accent in two words!!  This is really disturbing! Here I am, trying to melt seamlessly into the local scene and my cover is blown in two words!

A little later, I bumped into a lovely, elderly couple and he, having listened to me, wanted to know whether I was Irish. I was in the process of explaining my complicated provenance, when suddenly he said, “I know some horses!”  I was trying to work out  the connection when his wife swept in from left field, took him by the hand and explained to me that he had Alzheimer’s and sometimes got a little confused. Strangely, he didn’t look confused to me, just happy, but she looked very worried and I felt hugely sorry for her. He probably did know some horses....

Today was all about up and down, and excellent training for LEJOG. Tomorrow, I do the second leg and I am even staying overnight in a B&B really to get the flavour of the thing (and also to save Veronica from what is now becoming a fairly onerous ferrying service).  But I will leave you with just one further anecdote, which I hope is somehow portentous.  I had decided to listen to the news about this horrible business in Libya and the enormously important business in Chennai and so had retrieved my earphones from my back-pack. About 5 km further on, I started to fire up my radio and suddenly remembered that I had failed to pick up the ear-phones from the stand where I had left them at the top of Box Hill. I might remind you that on this early spring day, Box Hill was a scrum of people, literally hundreds. Nevertheless, when Veronica collected me, I asked her to take me back to Box Hill, just in case. To our utter amazement, they were still there, exactly where I had left them three or four hours earlier!!  Restores your faith, doesn’t it!

Not something one would see in the Kogelberg!

The lady with the Chiffchaff and the terrier...

A railway bridge over a track in the middle of nowhere. Engineeringly excellent and architecturally elegant. Those rich Victorians had clear ideas about how to spend their money!

Beautiful, but I have no idea what it is!

Stepping stones over the River Mole. A new experience!

Reading the Guardian on the North Downs. How English!

Even more English! A certain Colonel Inglis bequeathed this pavillion to the public of Reigate. Why? Amazing!

And a rather special sunset in Reigate!

The North Downs: Training Day 2

I am a rank amateur! Of course you knew this already, but I certainly got properly put in my place at lunch-time today. I had stopped for a bite and a rest at the famous Newlands Corner recreation spot on the North Downs. I was standing in a short queue, waiting to be served amongst all the bikers, the truckers, the artisans and the elderly strollers, when I noticed a large back-pack on the ground, and next to it, its owner, John, caught my eye. We acknowledged each other as the only hikers amidst the throng, and after I had made my purchase, I asked whether he minded if I joined him at his table.

In no time, I was telling him of my intention to do the LEJOG. John was instantly interested, and was asking me all about the route I was intending to take, the details of the trip, etc. Then he told me had done LEJOG not once, but four times! Twice in each direction!  I was just dealing with this input, when he went on to tell me that actually, he now pretty much lived on the trails, from about this time of the year to early November. It turns out that there isn’t a trail or significant path anywhere in the UK that he hasn’t covered.  I wondered how he could sustain the cost of such a lifestyle and he told me that he had been doing it for twenty years, and he was now 65. He camped rough most nights and carried all his food and camping gear in his enormous pack, which he told me weighed 60 lbs (27kg), almost three times the weight of mine! He talked about life on the trails and how he had managed to whittle away at all the extraneous factors in his life and was now focussed only on the essentials.

I was definitely out of my league. He didn’t seem too impressed at my intention to overnight in B&Bs, because “they will reduce your options and drive your agenda”.  Much as I understood what he was getting at, I told him I just wasn’t tough enough, and probably never would be, and what is more, I need to power all my electronics. He looked sympathetically at me, as if welcoming a rather misguided novice into a new and mysterious religious experience. Never mind, my son, you will understand one day.

But he did give me some useful advice and information, all of which will contribute to the planning. He told me that he averaged about 10miles a day, which is roughly what I am planning to do and rather less than the average LEJOGer. He said that if you go faster than this, you miss too much along the way.  And he echoed something my daughter Marion had said yesterday, that the time would soon come when the pack became so integrated with the body that it felt more normal to be carrying it than to be without it. Marion said it was actually comforting to have it on her back when she was climbing Kilimanjaro. He said much the same and we spent quite some time comparing the relative merits of our pack designs. It is interesting how quickly one’s perspective about what is important changes....

As we parted, he insisted that if I did indeed succeed, I would be hooked and that we would undoubtedly meet again, because in his experience, one just did. The community of long-distant hikers was smaller than I might imagine. As I walked away, I couldn’t help reflecting that this encounter had taken place on the Pilgrims’ Way....

He was though, the only interesting, if rather eccentric, person that I met today. I reflected ironically that this particular stretch of path is the closest to home of any day’s walking that I will do in the next few months and yet quite possibly the least friendly.  This is the inevitable result of the enormous population density of the dormitory towns around London in the Home Counties. People who want to walk in the countryside are getting away from it all for just a couple of hours and they tend to ignore the very existence of fellow walkers, let alone get involved in philosophical conversation with some aging weirdo and his back-pack!

But that doesn’t apply to the dead!  At the top of Martha’s Hill, the Pilgrims’ Way runs past the mediaeval church that is said to be associated with the martyrdom of St Thomas a Becket, and surrounding it there is a graveyard. I had seen it before, but for some reason I went again to look at the grave of Lieutenant-General, The Right Honourable, The Lord Bernard Freyberg, VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO and three bars. Having read a little of his extraordinary life and incredible bravery, I have no doubt at all that this man deserved all the honours that a grateful country could bestow on him. But as I wandered further along the path, I got to wondering just how different my world is from his and how much things have changed. I constructed for myself an imaginary conversation with him, in which I tried to explain how different things are now.

I suggested to him that the ethos of self-sacrifice and duty to king and country were now, in my experience, pretty much nonexistent. I explained that even in the army, motivation seemed to me to be different these days. I had had some conversations with young officers when my daughter Anna had received a gap-year commission in Her Majesty’s Armed Services. They had explained that even for the officers, the army was just a career stepping-stone and that the objective was to avoid getting hurt, much less killed, rather than as an opportunity to demonstrate valour, honour and self-sacrifice, and this was even before the Iraq war. There were exceptions, but they were just that; exceptions. I explained that in my youth in South Africa, I had gradually become a committed pacifist, so much so that I had felt that I had to resign my own commission as an officer in the conscript South African army in very trying, not to say menacing circumstances.

I had remained convinced that there was never a justification for armed conflict, because the people who paid with their lives or livelihoods were almost never the people in power and that no matter how justifiable the cause, the law of unintended consequences almost always meant that the victory was not worth the cost. Over time, I was forced to adjust the simplicity of those convictions, but by then I was no longer living in Apartheid South Africa, and the stark choices facing the countries of Europe in the 2nd War were much more apparent.

General Freyberg pointed out to me that in fact I was being slightly disingenuous. He knew that I had actually supported Tony Blair’s concept of justifiable aggression by the democracies in pursuit of the prevention of genocide and similar acts of terror against dictators and extremists. I was not one of the one million people who had marched for peace through London before the Iraq War.  I agreed, but asked him to consider how that had all turned out, and said that if anything, it had again confirmed my convictions about unintended consequences.

He seemed frustrated by my views. He said that they were all too focussed on myself as a protagonist of the “me” generation.  He said that modern civilisation would never have been developed if the pioneers had had my convictions. He accused me of having a “soft centre”. He said that I lacked the imagination to understand how the world would have looked if Hitler or Stalin had won. He said that in any case, even though his first commission had been granted by none other than Winston Churchill, in all his acts of bravery, he had never philosophised about it, he had just done his duty to the very best of his ability, and let the leaders decide what had to be done. I asked him why then had he actually volunteered to take part in the civil war in Mexico before WW1? Surely this was just glory-seeking adventurism? He didn’t answer for a while and then agreed that his views had changed as he had matured, just as had mine.

The conversation didn’t actually end. It just kind of petered out when I met John, but I suspect General Freyburg and I will have more to say to each other as I occupy the many hours of my LEJOG. Of course I know almost nothing about General Freyburg, so I would ask you to understand that these musings are purely theoretical and are not intended in any way to impugn his memory, or to suggest that I know anything at all about his actual views.  I am just imagining!

Back to reality then! At last I did reach my objective at Ranmore Common, where Marion collected a rather frazzled and happy father. I have proved that I can complete two back-to-back days of 16km (10m) each without too much stress and strain. Now I will rest for a few days and then string three days together with full pack next week. If that goes according to plan, I will consider that I am as ready as I ever will be to start LEJOG!

Leaving Guildford. The rich live on this Soutward facing slope!

St Martha's-on-the-hill

General Freyberg's grave

The vibrant, clear colours of the Cape have been replaced by the mists and subtle greys of Surrey

Pill boxes protected London from potential German invaders in WW2. These punctuated my imaginary conversation with General Freyberg. I passed many of them.

A contrast with the Kogelberg! How about this for a multi-lane walking high-way! "Slow walkers keep to the outside lanes!". (Just kidding!). But I was really pleased to be back on the white chalk.

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!

Fairy Glen to Klipspringer and the Plateau

The last day of the holiday and I was determined to let it end on a high. The path I chose was demanding, but rewarding: magnificent views, flowers, birds and this time, even a few Klipspringer buck. As the title suggests, the walk began in Fairy Glen, now becoming quite familiar, but I took a detour towards Klipspringer on a path I had often seen before but was always too lazy to attempt, starting as it does after a steady climb and itself heading straight up a mountain. It led to the little peak of Klipspringer, named after the buck, and where by pure coincidence, I did actually see a couple of Klipspringers! I could hardly believe it! Synchronicity writ large! I could only admire their excellent camouflage and even more their effortless ability to flit from rock to rock down seemingly vertical slopes with not a single false step.

In a spirit of high elation, I soon found myself on a magnificent mountain plateau with plenty of trails, including one leading to the Perdeberg. That will definitely be on the menu for a walk very much in the future, but it looks like quite a stretch and I simply didn’t have the time today. Given all the trails, I was able to construct for myself a figure-of-eight walk, which eventually joined up with the route from Kleinmond to Fairy Glen that I had previously shared with Veronica and Mary. I was back at the car within three hours, feeling fit and strong!

So that’s it! My South African training programme is over, not without its ups and downs, literally and figuratively! The programme has involved me repeating many of the walks many times, which I obviously haven’t posted. There is a limit to your tolerance! But all in all, I have covered about the distance I planned when first I arrived. We fly back to Heathrow tomorrow and then next week, the next phase of my preparation starts. I will be attempting several legs of the Pilgrims’ Way (also known as the North Downs Way), with full pack and rain gear. It will be a severe coming down to Earth after my celestial experience here in the Cape, and the cold and wet will undoubtedly present their own difficulties. Still, it is now less than a month until the start of LEJOG, and although I still don’t feel ready (will I ever?), I actually can’t wait to get started.

By the way, I have been told that some folk who have requested email reminders of the latest posting have not been getting them (I can’t think why they felt deprived!!). It does seem that Gmail in particular has taken a dislike to the automatic emails and is banishing them to its spam catcher. I find this surprising since it is Google itself which has provided the technology to send out the email notices in the first place! Anyway, the answer is to look in your Gmail spam file and if the email is there, move it back to your in-tray. Hopefully, Google will get the message!

This fellow looked awfully glum. I suppose staring at the back of a rock for millennia will do that... He was huge!

A Klipspringer and his mate in silhouette

Alert and not too keen on my intrusion into his domain

Tritoniopsis triticea (perhaps?)

Looking back towards the Kogelberg

Erica something or other (!)

Erica pillansii (we think)

Looking back up to the Klipspringer peak from below

That concludes the walk, but I thought I might include a few snaps taken during our time in SA, for auld lang syne!

Veronica and friend. He looks a bit glum too....

Enjoying coffee at our favourite bistro

Lady of her manor!

Edenly from the sea

And to finish off, inevitably, a last blast of sunsets...........

Kleinmond 4th Street to Fairy Glen

OK, so now I'm getting a bit overconfident with the technology. Today I forgot to switch on my hand-held satnav when we started the walk and then I forgot to switch it off when we ended it. So anyone looking at the Everytrail track will think we started walking in the bush and finished in the middle of a highway. I figure that the overall result will more or less reflect what we did, even if it is a bit hit and miss!

What I haven't explained is that I was privileged to have the company of Veronica and our very good friend Mary on the walk. I had thought Veronica would be there mostly to keep a check on my infantile mountain speeding behaviour of the last blog, but it turned out it was the fijnbos she was after. I offered her my camera to record her journey, which may have been a mistake! There isn't a single bloom anywhere in the Kleinmond Nature Reserve that hasn't been captured! The photos which will follow this blog are an impossible refinement of 128 Veronica masterpieces all wittled down to 6 sublime snaps that are supposed to capture the essence of the walk. But even they cannot possibly do it justice!

I'll spare you a detailed description of the walk, because I get the impression you are already fading out there in cyberspace. Suffice it to say that we meandered up a mountain path above Kleinmond through a burned out Protea field, in which the new flowers erupted in simply stunning beauty. Mary kept saying that she couldn't believe that this wasn't an exquisite permanent garden, except that the colours and the textures were just too subtle and unusual to have been man-made. She kept saying that it was like being on another planet.

That said, our progress was very slow. Every few minutes, we drew to a halt as Veronica was squinting through the viewfinder to take a shot of yet another exquisite example of fijnbos flora. It must be simply exhausting for nature to keep this up on a year-round continuous basis, especially when it has to cope with fires and droughts at the same time!

We were also hoping to view some of the local fauna, having previously seen baboons and Klipspringer buck in this vicinity, but nothing appeared. I was, though, forced to recall that once upon a time when my daughters were much younger, we had been on this path and suddenly they spotted a baboon on a path below us. Certainly there was a mammal on the path, but as it progressed it looked more and more comfortable on four legs. Eventually, I had to share that I thought it was a dog. My daughter turned to me optimistically and said; "No Daddy, it's a Boondog!". And so it has remained, ever since. A comment never to be forgotten!

Which of course got me to thinking. There is a time in one's life when one sees things through different eyes. I remember Betty's Bay in so many different ways. Once upon a time, I remember writing Algebraic equations in the sand on Silversands Beach as one daughter proposed solutions to intricate problems. I remember other occasions when the other daughter asked me searching philosophical and political questions about the history of South Africa and I felt insecure about how much she would identify me with the ancien regime and question my ethical foundation. These are complicated memories. Today, things seem simpler. Now it is less about the complex relationships with much-loved progeny and much more about simple aesthetics. Like the flowers in the Kleinmond Nature Reserve. Is age simply smoothing away the issues, or am I simply ignoring them? Something to ponder!

We eventually made it through the beautiful Fairy Glen, past the waterfall and into the the Fairy Forest at Feetjiesbos. Mary and I got a little carried away in a thought experiment that had us transported into a future world where computers ruled the world and suddenly these people had been transputed in time by fairies to a world run by computers in which there was no food. They were destined to starve to death! We came upon a pumping station with lots of cars and no people. We decided they were the people who had been transputed. Then a car suddenly appeared behind us. We decided they were the feds and we had to get away. Then Veronica told us to get real, and sheepishly, we did....

But I still think Mary has a point.....

 A lone Protea near our point of departure, (the only snap in this set taken by me!)

A dry river ravine, with rocks washed completely smooth by repeated torrents over very many years

The stalks of burned out proteas standing as sentinals over the Palmiet River estuary in the distance

 

Exotic textures and subtle colouring in the fijnbos

 

Endless varieties of Restios (grasses)

Another magnificent orange-breasted sunbird

The Perdeberg in the distance

Our destination; Fairy Glen