Practice Hike 4 - it's a monster!

I think I owe 14 kids an apology! I have a new map measurer, which told me this route was about 14km, which seemed fine. Well, according to my Nokia Sports Tracker software, we had done 22.7km before the battery packed up (we were near the finish by then though). With that in mind, an even bigger well done to everyone! You can see all the stats here. It shows speed and altitude, luckily I wasn't wearing my heart rate monitor!

We started from Beeding Hill (pic 1), running a little behind schedule because I was late. No change there, then. We headed down the scarp slope towards Tottington Manor, which is just visible in pic 2. This was actually quite a tricky path - narrow, with stinging nettles and quite cut up by the horses' hooves. It also got very steep at the bottom.

Once we got to the Manor, we met Siân, who had problems finding the start point. We stopped there for an early lunch (pic 3).

We went up to Longlands Wood, which was very nice. Bit cooler and shadier in there!

We next went towards Edburton, which is a typically quaint (i.e. expensive!) spring line settlement along the foot of the Downs. For awhile now, we had seen the looming scarp slope and now we tackled it (pic 4). That did spread us out a bit, and we were all a little puffed by the top.

We walked down the gentle dip slope on Summers Down, and went over the bypass on Southwick Hill. The legs were definitely getting tired by now, but there was no conceivable short cut back to the car park. I texted ahead to warn everyone we'd be an hour late, although this actually ended up to be about 75 minutes.

We pushed on up Thundersbarrow Hill (pic5) then for the last 2km we were back on the Monarch's Way - a final descent and ascent over the crest of the hill and the final half kilometre is downhill with the car park in sight.

This really was a long trek and the calves were feeling it a bit by the time we were back home, but well done to all!

Dave