Day Fourteen Stage 3 Westhumble to Merstham

Day Fourteen Friday June 12 

Linda!

I was up at 4.09 with birds singing and my phone chiming away with texts. There was a small issue to be dealt with 3000 miles away and I was up. 

By suitcase weighs a ton, being filled with magazines I havent had time to read, bags of nuts, bathroom amenities and my cold weather clothes I needed in York but now are just...well... baggage. I dont have to deal with that, the taxi service will transfer the bag to the next hotel. I do have my extra heavy rucksack though --- excuse me... backpack. we were carrying 20 extra pounds of valuables the taxi service doesnt want to take to our next hotel for us - the computers, electronics, plus water, poncho, umbrella, wallets, camera, nut mix ....hey, chocolate is heavy! We will leave no chocolate behind!
It adds up. 

I was up at 4.09 with birds singing, the sun shining  and my phone chiming away with texts. There was a small issue to be dealt with 3000 miles away and I was up.

Todays Tally

Today was a tough one also because  we never stopped going uphill. For all the climbing the elevation is very low. The trade off was it was also the most gifted day . The NDW gave me just about everything I could want, thank you. It made for the best views and walking yet but was a strain on physical resources. My body count of rack and ruin is mounting. I'm tired. 

SO, Box Hill to Merstham. 
My talisman sits on the Box Hill directional marker, Gatwick Airport 8 miles. Its a reminder that this southern part of England is one of the most densely populated, a larger and larger burb of London. The NDW has the downside in that huge chunks of its route are within a mile or so of various mega roads. Luckily its possible to forget that and get deep into the rural nature still. 

The Pilgrims Way

Not forgetting we are following the route of the devout pilgrims to Rome sometimes the North Downs Way is on what it marked as the ancient trackway they took. This is one of those places. I stopped for a minute, a good excuse to rest, but to think about the many many many countless people throughout mankinds centuries who have walked here where I am walking right now. Amazing. I hoped their energy remained and would get me through. 

This is a memorial or grave of a thoroughbred racehorse named QUICK who lived between 1936 and 1944. Good name. 

How could I forget? I have to get in the obligatory shoe shot. This one on chalk. Chalk is not soft. 

I love these narrow paths. You can get up close and personal with bees, hedges (and nettles) but they're for humans and survive from a time when people walked to villages, farms and church. You dont have to share with horses and cars, though now bikes are eroding them badly. 

I came to a particularly perfect stretch of hedgerow, the traditionally laid ones with roses, viburnum, dogwood, hawthorne, buddlea. Everything you want in your garden growing wild and beautifully.  This hedge could be 500 years old. 

Time for lunch and a break. Someone was thoughtful and set this bench on top of a hill. I'm not moving. 

More wide views across the South Downs and rolling hills. It was hazy, hot and muggy.  

Colley Hill, a National Trust property now, used to be a mining operation. The white  stone mined dries into a chalky white color and was used as a substance to clean hearths and doorsteps during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Known as hearthstone, it was a popular cleaning product and mines were opened throughout this area. 

The mine at Colley Hill opened in the 1890s. Stone was mechanically crushed and pressed into molded blocks. Popular household names such as ‘Osowhite’, ‘Panda’ and ‘Snowdrift’ hearthstone powders were produced there. The heyday of the mine was the 1920s when demand was so high that there was a daily delivery to London.

Now its a pasture for Banded Galway Cattle.

And this structure called "The Inglis Folly". It was donated by a Lieutenant Colonel Inglis in 1909. It was originally a drinking fountain but now houses a direction indicator. I dont think anyone knows what it means, but thats the nature of a folly, right? Looking up it has a surprizing  intricate ceiling mosaic of the universe. Look closely, Jupiter even has all its little moons! Sweet or what? 

Temple? Conduit to some celestial power? You decide! 

This was the most massive mounting block I'd ever seen. We were about to cross a bridge over a major road and horses were to be lead. There was one of these at each end. Our Vanna White stand in Linda shows the scale. 

All in all a challenging day but the walk you come here to do - views, local color, hedges, birds, history, cottages, wildflowers as far as the eye can see. Where else can you do this? I am a fortunate though foot weary woman. 

Strawberry and Clotted Cream Ice Cream From the Farm, We Earned It