AAC Walk, Black Down

We (Sue, Steph and I)joined a local AAC walk around Haslemere.. the details we had was to arrive at the station for 9:20. A lot arrived by train, but there were a couple in cars.
After all the bureaucratic and waiting bits we set off. There was a paper route map, but I also had downloaded a GPS route from some local website.

Setting off along the road back to the old centre, before climbing up to the south. This finally came out into the open woodland and up to the Black Down top. At the viewpoint looking down around.

The off to the Temple of the winds... a view point on the end of this little escarpment.
At this point we were still many miles short of the lunch stop, which was to the south of Fernhurst. I felt we needed to "cut the corner off" and drop down to Fernhurst directly, so we made our goodbyes and went in the opposite direction to the others.

We had a view of a tri- and a bi- plane flying over the escarpment ... a little too far for my little camera.
I am sure I have seen these before as part of a WW1 display team.

The way down started off OK, but as we got further it turned more and more into a stream running down the centre of a footpath of churned up leaf mould .. not so muddy but definitely messy.

In Fernhurst we fell into the Red Lion pub for a drink and a portion of chips. Bertie was very happy to be there, up until now he was game for the walk, and after intense pulling at the start had settled down to an interested trot.

After lunch he was not happy .. he had thought it was all over and time to go home ... he did not want to go on. Gentle persuasion and he kind of came along... but I am sure he was muttering under his breath.

From the pub we crossed over the village to emerge out the other side and the long climb up to Marley Heights ... not as high as Black down, but just if not more taxing. The real notable thing was at the start of the climb Sue washed her boots and Bertie off in a stream before losing her footing coming out and ended up worse than before going in.
Up on Marley heights and in the NT area the landscape changed again. We went from deciduous woods into pine, gorse and sand.

There was a long flat(ish) bit back to the outskirts of Haslemere, where we were back on the roads (and a field soon to be a building site) before coming down to the station.
Everyone had walked far enough by now ... 14kms from a standing start .. Bertie was exhausted even as his eyes were closing, he slept for most of the rest of the day. Sue was a little bruised from her mishap and would take a few days to recover.