Another late blog post - Phil writes about our first training walk to the South Downs.


Our first venture to the South Downs:
Night walking, Ankles & Misplacing Ourselves....

The plan was relatively simple, arrive at a campsite at Check Point 5 (Washington), set-up camp, grab a quick dinner and walk through the night to the end point. The aim was to prove that we could walk through the night and walk our last long distance training walk together.  In the words of a famous Meercat, “simples”.

Alas all was not as simple as hoped. Firstly as we should have realised, the M25 is evil and no matter which way round it one travels, the result is almost certainly going to be long periods of stationary traffic. Once we finally all got there, we were 2 hours later than anticipated. Not to matter, with perfect weather and massive amounts of pasta and cake we set off.

Our campsite in Washington

First challenge was a massive climb up to the top of the ridge way. We practically ran up the hill, walking poles are an amazing invention and got there just in time to see the most amazing sun set over the south of England. Once we’d located the South Downs way, it should all have been easy, follow the track all the way along until Brighton…

A couple of miles onto the South Downs Way (although as you’ll see later, I’m not actually sure if it was the South Downs Way), just as it was starting to get dark I fell down a small hole. It really was a very small hole, normally the sort of thing you’d jump right on over and not notice. Unfortunately for me, I caught it at just the wrong angle, and I went over and pain shot through my leg.  I tried to stand up and almost as quickly fell right over again. After a couple of minutes lying on the floor, (with Claudia holding my legs in the air after a possible faint), I stood up and decided to carry on. It actually didn’t hurt that much after that, I assumed I’d just gone over awkwardly and we carried on. Adrenaline/ endorphins are amazing drugs.

Well it turns out that at some point we were no longer walking along the South Downs Way. It turns out night navigation is particularly difficult, as there is only a small area to look at, we made an age old mistake of looking at the map and then matching that to what was around us. Not really sure where we went wrong, but we ended up about 15 miles south of where we should be. In our night-time delirium we decided to walk along the road (a major A-road) to where we should be. Around this time my ankle was really starting to hurt (fighting back the tears hurting) and we were hopelessly lost. After walking over a very scary dual carriage way bridge with no pavement, we decided to call it a night and get picked up.

Waiting to be picked up... 

After a night in the tent, it was apparent that my ankle was actually really damaged. My whole foot was black and blue and my ankle was the size of a tennis ball.  A friendly nurse on the campsite, bandaged it up for me and we spent the next day lazing in the sun, eating a pub lunch and reading books. 

Time for attempt two! The next evening the team set out to walk from Devils Dyke to Lewes. As I was unable to walk more than a couple of meters I was to act as support crew. I waved them off at the path to Devils Dyke and set off to Tescos so I could meet my team with cookies, water and other tasty goodies! 

The team walked fast, very fast. I’d barely stocked up on supplies when the call came to meet them at the first check point, after a little bit of a map reading fail I met them at a windmill to watch a lovely sunset. 

Fed and watered them and sent them off again – next meeting place Ditchlin Beacon (a hill I know well from the London-Brighton cycle ride) Annie my car struggled valiantly up the hill, while I thought of my poor teams legs and feet. Once at the top I had about 20 minutes to spare. I think the beacon is a ‘doggin’ spot – all I can say is there were lots of couples on the hill and they all looked at me rather strangely when I turned up with a boot full of water and flapjacks and stared intently at my kindle while listening to classic fm! Anyway the team turned up, all in good spirits and we agreed to meet in Lewes.

The journey to Lewes was short and sweet. Lewes is a fascinating town, there is a castle at the top, a train station at the bottom and an incomprehensible one-way system. Mike and I (I’d picked up Mike for moral support by this stage) sat in a car park waiting nervously for girls to arrive. We laughed at the Saturday night revellers, jumped at the firecracker let off round the corner (they really do sound like a gun shot) and tried to calculate the time to finish.

So it turns out that I tore my Anterior tibulofibular ligament – which means lots of weeks of rest. I’m out of the walk now, which is really upsetting. However Julia has stepped into the place, which is brilliant. I’m now support crew, which has its own challenges. I’m stupidly nervous that we’ll lose the team/ not provide enough food for them/ get lost trying to find a check point/ not have everyone’s number and miss a check point/ run out of blister plasters arghhhhhh the stress – only a couple of nights to go now!

Good luck everyone!

Philippa x