Royal Alexandra and Albert - Home: 5th July
At the beginning of July I was working at RAA and thought, you know it's not a bad idea to walk home from here. So as with the Reigate School walk, I finished a full days worth of work and then proceeded to walk home. I was on a mission. I was determined to be home in a decent time as I had to be up early to do it all again the next day so I set off on the North Downs Way which runs through the schools grounds up to the top of Reigate Hill. Managing to keep a good pace going I kept going along the flat to Colley Hill where I turned off and crossed the M25 and into Margery Wood and Mogador ... No not Mordor. This first part of the walk was really nice, and a chance to get to know another area I dont know massively well considering I work just around the corner from it. I walked mainly through wooded areas and past farmlands, being a mountain person you would have thought I would be bored of this type of scenery but I am at the end of the day a Surrey boy and this is what I grew up with. Then I entered a foreign land. Walton Heath Golf Course. I had to walk through the heart of pristinely cut grass and golfers with their outrageous trousers for about a mile constantly checking to the left and to the right for stray balls. It felt like walking through a war zone a well kept one at that. Nevertheless I got through to the other side and crossed the main road at the top of Pebble Hill. I went over the M25 again at Frith Park and then things went downhill. I had prided myself with how good my navigation had been up until this point and how quick I was going that things naturally were about to go a bit wrong. Heading into the back of Headley there were suddenly a ton of paths that weren't on my map. As Gandalf once said, if in doubt always follow your nose, and well I couldn't smell anything but I could sense that one path would take me where I wanted to go. Then I came across another junction and thought oh no not again. So I trusted instinct again and by chance happened to come along the right path. This got be into Headley itself, so I found my way onto Headley Heath and aimed myself at High Ashurst. The myriad of paths got worse and confusing signs were a plenty. My phone battery life was critical and so I had to limit the amount of time I checked my position. Sure enough it told me I was in the wrong place after climbing up a seriously steep hill. I made along to High Ashurst a bit frustrated and found myself with a similar path problem. Do I go left or do I go right I went right and down the hill only to get down to the bottom of the hill and realise I had done a massive circle and was again in the wrong place. Increasingly wound up I checked my phone again which at this point was critical and marched back up to High Ashurst and took the left hand path. My pace had slowed horrendously since Frith Park and I was getting increasingly annoyed, people in the surrounding area may have heard a few bad words, but time was getting on and I was fed up. I had to turn my tracker off to make sure I could make an emergency call if I needed to so the navigation was down to me and the map. I made it up down to the road which takes you down to Box Hill and knew that if all else failed I could just walk down it. Endeavouring on I climbed up the other side of the hill and onto what I thought would be a straightforward path and it was to a point, but again there were several paths that looked like they could be the right one. Realising that time was against me I decided to make it to Mickleham and get picked up. I debated for a long time whether this was the right thing to do or not and then I remembered the walks that Jim and I had done where we had got lost or been in bad conditions and thought, we always stopped when it wasn't fun anymore. The point of this challenge has always been to remember the good times I had walking with someone who meant the world to me, if I wasn't having fun then there was no point in carrying on. With this in mind I felt stopping wasn't such a bad idea. Through some seriously poorly maintained paths I made it down to Mickleham where dad picked me up.
Walk Total: 8
Silverstone:
A couple of days later I took Dad to Friday practice of the British Grand Prix and we thought that to get a few more miles in we would walk around the outside of the Formula 1 circuit. It was great fun just getting to see the track in real life but also see the scale of it. We stopped for lunch half way round the track up by Copse Corner before tackling the challenging Maggots/Becketts section and blasting down the Hangar Straight. We realised that we were running short of time before Practice two started so we went for it and made it back to our spot at the exit of Vale going into Club. I don't know about going purple (F1 Lingo) in sector three but we certainly went red! It was very hot and I got burnt during FP2. It must have taken around an hour and a bit to go around the whole track and even walk on part of the old circuit at Abbey. Well Hamilton took pole the following day with a 1 minute 29.287. Puts in perspective as to how fast they go.
This blog should be the blog of tracking problems. My phone didnt log it properly so again I have had to make an estimation with the data that we had.
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| Romain Grosjean in the Haas going a bit faster than us. |
Epsom Downs - Home
Keeping the racing theme going I walked back from Epsom Racecourse the other week. Now putting the navigation dramas to one side I wanted to do something very straightforward. Once I had tackled the racecourse and Langley Vale I would be on Stane Street all the way through to Mickleham. For once I listened to music for the walk and it was actually pretty nice. I had my Norwegian playlist on, full or super fast black metal to get me into a rhythm and I was powering along so much so that a lot of the tracks felt a lot slower than they normally do. It was very surreal. Once I was on Stane Street the walk was ... well pretty boring to be honest ... just keep going ... yep still going. I was on Stane Street for about 3-4 miles, its an old Roman Road so pretty damn straight and it just keeps on going.
When I got to Mickleham heath I remembered that I would have to go down the badly maintained path again to get to the village, sure enough it had become even more overgrown to the point where I had to crouch to get through some parts of it. I got there though. From here it was up on to the top of Norbury and through Fetcham home. So I went for it and got to the top of Norbury and managed to get a bit lost again. Yeah, I know, I got lost when I was practically home. I thought the map was saying go left which it was but what it meant was you have to go right first then left. Ah well I went along a really cool path which I don't think many people go down before and it was really quiet so that was cool. After that it was the all to familiar walk back from Norbury, home. This time the tracker worked fine!
Walk Total: 10.0
Overall Total: 232.4
Please do not forget I am doing this for charity, I am walking 500 miles for the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity who support young people with serious and terminal illnesses and their families at the most difficult of times. To donate follow this link: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/500mileschallenge
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