constanttrek

August 13th, 2004

We have been following the North Downs Trail this week. Or, the Up and Downs Trail, as it should be called. At first it was sheer bliss to get off the motorways, and away from vehicles thundering by us. The Kent countryside is beautiful, of course, and the gorgeous sunshine was an added bonus. Our first night in a farmer’s field about 15 miles south of Rochester was wonderful, free range hens sharing our dinner included.
The next day was a slight shock to the system. Reading the guide the night before, I had become slightly suspicious at the amount of times the word “climb” was mentioned, particularly when followed by “panoramic views”. No point in worrying, though, and I slept the untroubled sleep of the innocent. Luckily. Have you ever attempted lugging a baby elephant up a cliff face? With a hippo hanging on for good luck? Fabulous fun, I can tell you, especially the descent part with your knees trembling and blisters banging the end of your boots. But seriously, it was hard work, and although the views were stunning, I do believe that I remarked at one point, in a somewhat disgruntled tone that I could happily do with less “panoramic views”, and more mileage.
Another interesting challenge was negotiating the fence crossings. The stiles and kissing gates of rural England have always utterly enchanted me. After a childhood spent crawling under wire fences with varying degrees of electric current running through them, I thought it was the height of civilisation to have proper fence crossings built into fields, a lovely way of inviting the public to use ancient walking paths, rather than a bolshy hand-painted sign warning that “trespassers will be prosecuted.”
That was, until I attempted crossing them with the monster on my back. After various attempts, Gary and I realised that in order to fit both us and the monsters around the kissing gates, we had to climb onto the second railing, poke our backsides out so that the packs were elevated above gate level, and get the other person to swing it out of the way whilst we clumsily collapsed back to earth. Thank god there was no-one watching on the first few attempts, as even we were doubled up on the ground in hysterics at the sight. We are now mean gate crossing machines, however, and have them negotiated in record time. And the stiles? Let’s just say that every time Gary is poised in the centre of a fence, waiting to transfer his weight to the other side, I hold my breath and have to stop myself yelling “timberrrrrr” in anticipation of him toppling. It hasn’t happened yet, but there are stiles yet to cross.
Needless to say it was a fairly short walk on that second Trail day – we made 5 miles, all of it up and down steps and across hills. We were utterly shattered and stopped at the first farm we came to which would have us. The heat was also fairly intense that day - fancy England producing a week of 30 degree days – and combined with one wrong turn which led us to climb one enormous hill entirely unnecessarily, we were well and truly finished.
At which point came the somewhat unwelcome discovery that we were fairly much out of food.
Now in the age of 24 hour Sainsbury’s (Coles if you are Australian) this sounds like a rather bizarre concept. But the Trail steers clear of villages, and when you are doing 10-15 miles a day (ok, except for that last one), with the monsters on, the idea of detouring by 2 miles to get food is not appealing. We were sure that sooner or later we would stop somewhere we could buy food. Well, that is one lesson we have well and truly learned now – and thankyou, thankyou, to the very kind London hikers who donated two huge American choc chip cookies to the cause – they and our last cup-a-soups kept us going for a whole day. A great day it was, though, as we managed over 15 miles to Westwell, where I am writing this from.
We have a lovely camp in a farmer’s field here, with yet more free range eggs for breakfast. Will I ever be able to revert to store bought again? We are getting thoroughly spoiled. There is a pub half a mile down the road, and the first night we were here it was our 5th wedding anniversary (and we were bloody starving as there was no food left) so we headed on down for dinner. At 5 o’clock. Pity it didn’t open until 7. But even after we had eaten the picnic table out the front, it was lovely to have a well cooked steak at the end of that long walk.
We had planned to have a rest day here anyway, but then the rain came down in torrents all day yesterday and last night, so we are taking another one to let the tent dry. Have to give Colemans tents a free plug here, though, and say that it didn’t leak a drop – unlike nearly every one of our neighbours. Given that it rained heavily and non-stop for over 24 hours, that is no mean feat, and we are very happy little campers. In actual fact, all of the gear we have has been superb, from the clothes to the stove to the much maligned monster packs. We are infinitely fitter than a week ago, and despite the rather horrendous blisters in pretty good shape. Gary’s brother drove down last night to relieve us of anything we thought we didn’t need (total weight, approx 1 kilo) and drop us off a few things we had left behind (total weight, approx 4 kilos) so the packs should be just that bit more interesting tomorrow.
The rain has put us slightly behind schedule – I have to keep reminding myself that we really don’t have a schedule – but we should still be on a ferry from Dover by the 12th. It is really only 2 walking days from here, but due to the distance between campsites, we will probably have to do it over 3 (unless we do a 20 mile haul).
I am going to upload some images onto the photo gallery on the weblog – diary page – and we will put the better ones on the actual website gallery a little down the track. Please excuse the weblog ones as they are mainly me mucking around, and as is plainly obvious I am no photographer. Gary’s little masterpieces will go on the other section.
So hopefully I will upload this onto the site around the 12th, and perhaps update you a little more then.
Cheers.

Entry Filed under: trekking