Oxted Circular - Country Run

We have been getting into the country walks around London lately. They are generally on pretty 

Dave outside St Peters church

good paths, so we thought we would try one as a run. This was in the middle of winter so we needed to make sure it was a good day, and luckily we found a cracker. Oxted is almost due south of us, and I always find it impressive that the Saturday Walkers club manages to squeeze such good walks in between the fairly high density of villages in England. I have recently bought a month subscription to the Ordnance Survey, this is the company that owns all the map data of Britain. I am keen to see how these maps work on my mobile. Supposedly they work without data, and it's really easy to plan a route on the computer, that you can then follow on your phone. I'll have to see how the phone battery lasts when I give it a go. For this run/walk it was down to the walk directions only though. These are always a bit weird, especially if you don't bother with the map. Since it's stuff like follow the path 150m, after the third wooden bench, veer right. You really have to put your faith in whoever wrote the directions. They haven't led me wrong yet, but I feel a lot more comfortable having the OS maps on my phone.

I'm not sure why this was in the middle of the wood

On the way out of Oxted there was this great old church, I think the tower was built in 1180, there was someone practising the organ when we visited. I guess that's a hard instrument to learn, since you can't really practise at home. Once we were out of Oxted it was then through woodlands for the rest of the day. It was winter so there weren't a lot of leaves on the trees, a lot on the ground though, which made for pleasant running. There was also an old Roman road we crossed over, that was pretty cool, it was in the middle of a wood, and I think people had tried to keep using it through the ages as there seemed to be cobblestones or rocks laid out in some parts.

Great running surface

We were pretty good with the directions in general, only making a wrong turn once or twice. It was a pretty good choice for a run, minimal mud, and fairly flat. We could cover the 19kms in just a few hours, then time for a massive Subway and back home to warm up and recover. I think we can definitely fit a few more of these into the routine.

Guernsey

A lovely day on Guernsey

We had a long weekend in Guernsey, this is the British channel island, next to Jersey. We were there in late winter, high season is very much summer, so we had the place to ourselves. The way we chose the location was a bit funny, it was more of where can we fly from city airport that we haven't been before, which isn't someplace like Frankfurt. And Guernsey came up. It's a cool place for a weekend break, we didn't explore that much, just stuck around St Peter Port, even there it was a cute little town to stroll around.

I think if we were to go back I would make more of an effort to cycle around the island. It seems that's the way to get around the island for tourists. Guernsey is pretty small, and the roads are supposedly speed limited at 30mph, though the taxi to the airport definitely didn't feel like that. I would also try and get out to the other islands, Sark and Herm and maybe Aldernay. I think there are also some nice beaches around, the water did look nice when the sun was shining, though I think I would need to be wearing a wetsuit to really enjoy a swim. It is still the English Channel after all.

The lighthouse at the end of the breakwater

Visiting Guernsey had a little of the same feel as Belfast did, in that they seem to be trying very hard to convince everyone of their Britishness and yet nearly all the roads/place names start with either Le or Les. The food is an interesting mix of British and French, with awesome seafood. These islands are pretty weird, they are British crown dependencies, and yet aren't part of the UK, they are independently governed. They are actually the last bit of the Duchy of Normandy that the English crown used to hold. And yet they are something like 20km from France.

Since we were there in off-season I think the ratio of tourist to business traveller was very much the opposite way from the high season, which probably made it feel weirder. We were surrounded by lawyers and what felt like tax evaders. I'm watching the Night Manager at the moment, and some of the other people in the hotel felt very like the Richard Roper character. I'm not saying that they were international arms dealers, more that they travelled in entourages, and were supremely rich. I don't normally stay in the same hotels as those people, their price range being far above mine, but it was off-season, and I guess the hotels have to fill the rooms somehow.

The most famous occupant of Guernsey must be Victor Hugo, he lived there when he was exiled from France. He wanted to leave France, but be somewhere that still spoke French, so Guernsey it was. He tried Jersey first, but wrote articles in the local newspaper that weren't very favourable to Queen Victoria, and they kicked him off. He actually wrote Les Miserable whilst he was on Guernsey, they will tell you this fact many times while you are there. You can visit his house, though it's only open in the high season.

Castle Cornet with the breakwater

Steep stairs on Guernsey

They also have a pretty cool castle, Castle Cornet. This was built on a little rock island completely separated from Guernsey, when it was first built it was a mile off the shoreline. In the past you had to sail across with supplies, and there was only a small beach and door through which you could come, this was only accessible at low-tide. Now there is a breakwater connecting it to the island so you can walk out to it. The first castle was built in 1204 when King John lost the last bit of Normandy to the French king, but the islands remained with the English. He built a castle here to stop French invasion. During the civil war Guernsey declared for Cromwell, but the castle remained royalist. The island laid siege to the castle, which was the last royalist stronghold to surrender. It was a pretty interesting place to visit, and went over a lot of the history of the islands.

The breakwater was pretty cool too, the weather was pretty bad when we were there, with a real gale blowing. There is only a fence on one side of the breakwater, and with the gale blowing it really felt like you could be dumped into the water.

Queen's House - Greenwich

The Queen's House has only recently opened after a long refurbishment. It's a really cool building in Greenwich Park and we were walking past one evening and noticed it was open, and free, so thought why not. I probably should have taken a photo from the outside, but I go past it nearly every day, and didn't even think about it. It was the first Classical building in Britain, and was built between 1616 and 1632. It's a weird building, in that a road used to go through it, so it's a bit strange to get from one side of the house to the other.

Sunset from the Queen's House

It looks really great now, since there are these colonnades and extra wings that were built later. But when it was first built there was an old red brick Tudor Palace next to it, so it must have looked really weird.

View towards Canary Wharf from the Queen's House

I'll have to plan a return visit, the ceiling of the main hall is painted with this sparkling gold, and is worth another look. There are a lot of paintings in there as well, a lot of them related to sailing, there are some interesting ones on new countries the British were visiting, like Australia and New Zealand.

When we visited it was really a lovely evening, so all my photos are of the grounds of the park, I really have to go back, if only to get some photos of the kangaroos and kiwis.

Buxton

Buxton actually has an Opera House

We were staying in Buxton when visiting the Peak District, it's only 45kms from Manchester, we went out via Stockport, which perhaps wasn't the best way to go. It's kind of depressing driving through there. It's just closed down businesses and eternal traffic lights. We were glad when we were out of the town and into the countryside.

Buxton is a pretty town, probably because of the geothermal spring which has made it a popular spa getaway since the 1700s. We didn't actually try the water from the spring, or go to a spa, since we were mainly here for walking.

We did manage to stop in at Lyme park on the way back to Manchester. Definitely recommend a visit here. It was the exterior for Pemberley in the classic BBC Pride and Prejudice series. And the location of the famous pond scene with Colin Firth. There was a little blurb about this scene on the information boards. And Colin Firth never dived into the lake. They had to use a stuntman. They were too worried that he would catch some disease from the algae or rats. Kind of changes the feeling around that scene.

The famous pond and Pemberley.

We didn't have a heap of time to look around, plus it was raining pretty hard, which was a shame. But you could easily spend a day at this place, the grounds are huge!

Seven Sisters

First view of the cliffs

One of the more popular day walks from London is the Seven Sisters, in Sussex, starting in Seaford and ending in Eastbourne. It's a longish day, about 20km with some up and down as you go over the sisters. It's a great view of the white cliffs, probably better than from Dover. If the weather is nice, this is a really great day out, though there aren't many opportunities to go for a swim. To be honest the cliffs are much nicer than the beaches. The beaches all seem to be covered in pebbles and moss, not what I look for in a beach. Eastbourne, where you finish, has a massive beach, still covered in pebbles. But it's nice sitting on the beach having a well-earned drink at the end.  The seven sisters are the seven cliff peaks from Cuckmere River to Birling Gap. And when you see shots of the cliffs of Dover in TV and films you are generally seeing these cliffs instead.

The beautiful English beach

Looking back along the cliffs and the National Trust lunch spot.

There is a bit of a slog out of Seaford, and before you get to the actual cliffs you have to ford a river. The council must have changed this part of the route, because in the past I think it was a couple of kilometres detour to walk up the river to a bridge. The river was definitely passable for us though, I'm not sure if that was because the tide was low. It was soooo cold, definitely halted any thoughts of a swim.

Lighthouse view 

I would definitely recommend this walk, I can see why it's so popular, it's a bit of a trip from London though, being 90 minutes on a train. The line is also Southern, which is a total pain, since there are just constant cancellations, strikes and delays on that train line at the moment.

Anyway, the Seven Sisters is a classic English walk, good views, gentle, rolling hills and not too strenuous. With ample chances for tea and scones.

Dolomites

Our awesome home for the week

We spent almost a week in the Dolomites over summer. I had never thought to really go to the Dolomites, but I'm so glad I did. They were so great, warm everyday, great walks and fantastic views. It was quieter than I would expect for somewhere with such great views, and weather. For some reason I would have thought the walking trails would have been a lot busier, but we kind of had them to ourselves.

We hired a house just outside Cortina D'Ampezzo, which had the most stunning view. Looking out across a meadow and Cortina proper to massive mountain peaks. It turns out that Cortina is actually where all the ultra-fashionable Italians go. So it was a bit funny for us to pop into the supermarket in town in our normal clothes only to see everyone super polished walking up and down the mall. I had to buy a whole new set of clothes there so I could go out to dinner. I had only packed hiking gear, which wasn't going to make the grade in Cortina.

The view from our balcony

There was a really good mix of forest and mountain walking here. Plus there are cable cars running, so no need to slog up and down the steep hills. We were thinking it would be a bit chilly, given Cortina is at 1200m elevation, but nope, lovely and warm the whole time. The Dolomites are super close to the Austrian border, in fact I think Austria used to control this area, so there is quite a German influence in the house design. And yet still Italian in other ways, you could always get a pizza and nice cheeses.

So many mountains

Village of Cortina - surrounded by mountains

We did some nice easy walks too, almost directly from the house. There was a good forest walk through a mountain meadow and then an isolated farmhouse for lunch. With a good selection of animals to play with.

There were some walks from the top of cable cars, with fantastic views out to the mountain ranges around us. It was up there that you could see how far the mountains went for. There was some good history around too, because this region was part of Austria until after World War I. So there was some fighting in the mountains surrounded Cortina. That would have been hard-core, fighting battles in those mountains.

View from the cable car stop above Cortina

It was a really relaxing holiday, because we were staying just out of Cortina it was nice and quiet. But only a 5 minute drive into the village. And with great views and perfect weather. Italy really does deliver on the weather front. I think if I was to go back to Cortina I would fly into the cheap Venice airport, and then it's almost directly north from there. So actually pretty easy to get to from London.

Fancy lunch venue - who's view we ruined by eating lunch on the other side

Kinder Scout

Me looking prepared at the start

As well as doing the lovely, relaxed, easy walk of the Great Ridge, we had to do something on Kinder Scout, this is an area that has such history in the UK. It was here that saw the mass trespassing that ensured we still have access to these great wild areas of the country. The UK is really a nation of ramblers and this trespass ensured we still have places to ramble. This walk was held in much more miserable conditions than the one on the great ridge, even taking into account the hail storms. It was meant to be only 14km, but through poor weather, poor paths and a lack of compass it ended up being a bit longer, about 4kms longer.

It was here that I actually got a bit nervous for the first time in the UK. If we were less fit, or less prepared, things could have gone a bit bad. It seems that the Mountain Rescue team do a lot of callouts for lost walkers on the plateau. And having been up there in really bad weather, I can certainly see how easy that would be. If you want tricky navigation, the Kinder Scout plateau is definitely a good challenge. And it's only 630m high or so, goes to show you that it's not necessarily elevation that causes issues. I would definitely go back to this place, but with a compass next time, it was so incredibly wild, and with a tinge of danger, and only 2 hours from London. That's pretty awesome!

The threatening skies - this was when we could still see.

If you like a good bog too, this is the place to go. It was quite incredible, pulling yourself up onto the peat blobs. I don't even know how to describe them, but these tussocks would be almost as high as me, and you would have to pull yourself onto them, there was no way around. And just so much mud. I was kind of expecting a path, across the plateau, but once you leave the edges there really is nothing, no people, no paths, no view. I don't really have many photos from the second part of the walk, since once we left the edge it became a bit more strenuous and I got a bit tired.

The sheep, safe in their fields

Our walk took us up Jacobs Ladder, so you start off wandering through fields with little lambs, and it's all quite pleasant. And then you get to the top and the cloud is super low, there is snow everywhere and the wind is really quite strong. On this first part of the walk there were quite a few people around, I guess because the paths were so good at this point. So we are still feeling pretty comfortable and relaxed. We were thinking we were going to be finished this walk in no time!

There are also all these great rock formations along the edge of the escarpment, they really look kind of mystical, as if giants had something to do with them. All around is just this boggy heather stuff, and then every now and again there are these massive rock piles. The route I had originally planned meant we would avoid most of the big rock piles, but luckily, with our lack of compass we got to do them as well. We carried on around the edge of the plateau until we got to Kinder Downfall, it's a waterfall, the names are really weird in this part. But the wind was so strong a lot of the water was actually blowing upwards. That was pretty cool.

Some of the weird rock formations in the distance

Kinder Downfall, with the water flowing up

This was when it then got a bit dodgy, the map I had suggested there was a path across the plateau to complete the loop where we started. We had also got a bit complacent with the great paths we have seen before in the UK, so hadn't bothered with a compass. Big mistake. The path was almost entirely non-existent, you were just searching for foot prints really. We were following a water course, so perhaps the water was higher than usual and had covered what path there normally is. Or perhaps it's so boggy up there, that paths just don't last. We were always going to be ok though, we had the map and knew so long as we veered more one direction than the other we would eventually hit the escarpment edge again. You didn't want to veer the other way, as you would have ended up parallel to the edge, and that would not have been good. The weather had really deteriorated at this point too, so we could barely see 50m ahead. All rather fun.

We managed to see some of the rocks in the distance eventually, then it was back along the edge on the other side of Edale. I definitely want to get back there, to explore more of this plateau. Hopefully in better weather.