09 Oct 2010
A day off, hints of one of the last mild sunny days of the year, so it must be time for another walk through Surrey woods...
Thanks to the wonderful bus-pass, I bus it to Shere to pick up from my last walk and head from Shere to Dorking along the top of the North Downs.
The start is the most heart-pumping section as I have to head up a wooded muddy and rutted footpath from Shere up the Downs to intersect the North Downs Way that runs along the top. (˜Up the Downs' - don't you love English? And when a batsmen is in he goes out, and when he's out he comes in... )
That gets a good sweat and heart-beat going, so at the top I pretend to look at my guide for a few minutes (‘Surrey walks for alcoholics' or something like that) until I start to cool down. For the next two or three miles this is really a gentle woodland stroll - firm wide path, canopy of trees, gentle bird song, filtered sunlight - very peaceful and relaxing. Since it is early October, there has been enough leaf fall to provide a red and gold path, yet there is still a bright green leafy canopy right over me. With the brown and silver tree trunks between, I'm walking through a colourful layer cake.
The next stage starts to wind in and out of the side of the Downs, so you start to have occasional excellent views south over the valley to the next ridge - The Greensand Ridge. By this time the sun has cleared the earlier slight mist and it's a perfect walking day - a 'goldilocks' walking day, not too hot, not too cold...
I hadn't expected such good views, and another thing I hadn't expected were pill-boxes. Ultimately I pass 7 or 8 during the walk, and of course, as this was the last range of hills before London, it was the perfect line to build a range of defensive pill boxes in the 40's when invasion seemed inevitable - they are just so incongruous now along this quiet woodland walk. One of them is even preserved by The National Trust and I take the chance to have a walk inside. I wouldn't want to spend too long cramped in there, Mr Mannering...
Surprise number three is not long coming. Whenever I stop from here onwards to look at the views or the guide, I become a 'lady magnet'. Sadly though, these are ladybirds. A sudden red hail deposits 10 or 12 of these on me - tiny red limpets on my shirt. One even seems to have a go at hiding in my right ear. If it's about to lay eggs in there I'm not having it (certainly not without rent) so they get chased away each time, including on one occasion a bee who seems to think that any human lay-by good enough for an army of ladybirds is good enough for him.
The path now dips into the woods, now out on to the downs, so you get both types of walk. Ranmore Common is supposedly an absolute haven for butterflies in the summer, but it's too late now, although one Red Admiral keeps the ladybirds company for a few yards.
I can see Dorking laid out now below - very pretty from up here - and I pass a man on a bench flapping away. "Ladybirds?" I ask, smiling, and he laughs... and flaps...
I start to imagine Bob Newhart doing one of his famous one-sided-conversation monologues. He phones God:
"Hey, God, Bob here. So - what you creating today?"
"A small flying insect? Ok, but we've got a lot of flies already, haven't we? Kind of a saturated market..."
"It has what? A shell? So where are the wings?"
"Oh - ok. So how do they come out?"
" 'The shell hinges open' ? ˜Like a DeLorean' ? "
"Does it go back to the future too?"
"No, no - it was a joke, God. A joke. No, no - forget it. I'm sure it's sensible. Hey - it's not as if it were covered in polka dots, eh? Ha, ha..."
"Oh... I see. Ok. No, no - that one wasn't a joke. Sorry. No - I'm sure it looks great."
"Ummm... Look, God, you've been working really hard recently, you know. Maybe you need to have a rest? How many days have you been working now?"
"Six days, non-stop? Man, I'd be seeing spots myself... Look - take a day off, relax, ok?"
"You were going to do what tomorrow? ˜Yorkshire'? Well, you've done the rough outline, right? "
"Ok - so just leave it like that, and have a break - they'll think it's supposed to look like that... trust me..."
Approaching the end of the walk now, and after a small section of road, I enter Denbies Estate and start to drop slowly down into Denbies vineyard. It's the biggest in the UK and from here I get a wonderful (and very un-English) view of a sea of close and precise rows of vines stretching out below me in the sunshine over gently sloping green hills. Mind you, apparently there are now over 400 vineyards in the UK, so it may become a more common site. Global warming has some pluses, then...
My walk ends as the footpath levels out and I walk in the late afternoon sunlight between acres of vines, and up ahead is the visitor's centre, where they may just do tastings. This has to be a very civilised way to end a walk - cheers!
Thanks to the wonderful bus-pass, I bus it to Shere to pick up from my last walk and head from Shere to Dorking along the top of the North Downs.
The start is the most heart-pumping section as I have to head up a wooded muddy and rutted footpath from Shere up the Downs to intersect the North Downs Way that runs along the top. (˜Up the Downs' - don't you love English? And when a batsmen is in he goes out, and when he's out he comes in...
That gets a good sweat and heart-beat going, so at the top I pretend to look at my guide for a few minutes (‘Surrey walks for alcoholics' or something like that) until I start to cool down. For the next two or three miles this is really a gentle woodland stroll - firm wide path, canopy of trees, gentle bird song, filtered sunlight - very peaceful and relaxing. Since it is early October, there has been enough leaf fall to provide a red and gold path, yet there is still a bright green leafy canopy right over me. With the brown and silver tree trunks between, I'm walking through a colourful layer cake.
The next stage starts to wind in and out of the side of the Downs, so you start to have occasional excellent views south over the valley to the next ridge - The Greensand Ridge. By this time the sun has cleared the earlier slight mist and it's a perfect walking day - a 'goldilocks' walking day, not too hot, not too cold...
I hadn't expected such good views, and another thing I hadn't expected were pill-boxes. Ultimately I pass 7 or 8 during the walk, and of course, as this was the last range of hills before London, it was the perfect line to build a range of defensive pill boxes in the 40's when invasion seemed inevitable - they are just so incongruous now along this quiet woodland walk. One of them is even preserved by The National Trust and I take the chance to have a walk inside. I wouldn't want to spend too long cramped in there, Mr Mannering...
Surprise number three is not long coming. Whenever I stop from here onwards to look at the views or the guide, I become a 'lady magnet'. Sadly though, these are ladybirds. A sudden red hail deposits 10 or 12 of these on me - tiny red limpets on my shirt. One even seems to have a go at hiding in my right ear. If it's about to lay eggs in there I'm not having it (certainly not without rent) so they get chased away each time, including on one occasion a bee who seems to think that any human lay-by good enough for an army of ladybirds is good enough for him.
The path now dips into the woods, now out on to the downs, so you get both types of walk. Ranmore Common is supposedly an absolute haven for butterflies in the summer, but it's too late now, although one Red Admiral keeps the ladybirds company for a few yards.
I can see Dorking laid out now below - very pretty from up here - and I pass a man on a bench flapping away. "Ladybirds?" I ask, smiling, and he laughs... and flaps...
I start to imagine Bob Newhart doing one of his famous one-sided-conversation monologues. He phones God:
"Hey, God, Bob here. So - what you creating today?"
"A small flying insect? Ok, but we've got a lot of flies already, haven't we? Kind of a saturated market..."
"It has what? A shell? So where are the wings?"
"Oh - ok. So how do they come out?"
" 'The shell hinges open' ? ˜Like a DeLorean' ? "
"Does it go back to the future too?"
"No, no - it was a joke, God. A joke. No, no - forget it. I'm sure it's sensible. Hey - it's not as if it were covered in polka dots, eh? Ha, ha..."
"Oh... I see. Ok. No, no - that one wasn't a joke. Sorry. No - I'm sure it looks great."
"Ummm... Look, God, you've been working really hard recently, you know. Maybe you need to have a rest? How many days have you been working now?"
"Six days, non-stop? Man, I'd be seeing spots myself... Look - take a day off, relax, ok?"
"You were going to do what tomorrow? ˜Yorkshire'? Well, you've done the rough outline, right? "
"Ok - so just leave it like that, and have a break - they'll think it's supposed to look like that... trust me..."
Approaching the end of the walk now, and after a small section of road, I enter Denbies Estate and start to drop slowly down into Denbies vineyard. It's the biggest in the UK and from here I get a wonderful (and very un-English) view of a sea of close and precise rows of vines stretching out below me in the sunshine over gently sloping green hills. Mind you, apparently there are now over 400 vineyards in the UK, so it may become a more common site. Global warming has some pluses, then...
My walk ends as the footpath levels out and I walk in the late afternoon sunlight between acres of vines, and up ahead is the visitor's centre, where they may just do tastings. This has to be a very civilised way to end a walk - cheers!
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