And so after what has been a rather adventurous couple of weeks, we finally found our boots on more familiar soil. Yet still not overly-familiar, however. For this Sunday’s adventure, we undertook our third walk within the South Downs National Park. As per all other ventures in this direction, this was thanks to an event at Goodwood; today, the annual picnic. Our alarms went off at five o’clock in the morning and we set off an hour and a half later, ultimately arriving at the starting point at a little after eight o’clock.
The starting point in question was Duncton Hill Viewpoint. As the name suggests, the spot offered immediate and beautiful views of the day dawning across the countryside below us. We headed off out of the car park along a footpath which took us around the outside of what we refer to as “Lambo Corner”, so called because a few years back a Lamborghini test driver stuffed his car through the crash barrier. Safely passed this apparently tricky curve, we crossed the road and entered a large, undulating arable field. Over the last few years I have driven down the road going through the centre of this particular walk, admiring its beauty and imagining walking through it. I was delighted to finally find myself making my way through, as the sun glinted off of the sweeping golden crop. We headed upward through the middle, skirted around the top edge and crossed through a small patch of trees, into a scrubby meadow, decorated with flowers. We continued alongside hedges heavy with berries, commenting on how much the bears would enjoy them (side note, it is rather nice to no longer be walking around scanning for any bear activity), before arriving at a descending chalky track. This was lined with flowers and butterflies, and again had great views off to the left, however was a little loose underfoot, and so required small, careful pigeon-steps in order to navigate without falling over. Shortly after we passed a horse and rider a long section of footpath where I continuously collected spider webs on my face and arms, before arriving at a crossroad of pathways. We stood in the shade to check the map. Naturally, the route led us up the long, rising sunny path, on a morning which was already getting hot, despite the relatively early hour. We therefore paused, re-hydrated and sun creamed, before continuing on our way.
Not long after, we reached bag-swapping time, at which point we smelt, and the saw, our first beasts of the day. The cows made their way hesitantly in our direction, probably wondering whether we were bringing them breakfast – sadly, we were not. We continued to steadily rise, and eventually came across a familiar sign; Bignor Hill. We had gone on a walk from Bignor Hill the previous summer, and were both surprised to have stumbled across it once more. We walked a little way along the footpath in its direction until the familiar hilltop came in to site, before turning back and rejoining the day’s route – it is always nice to join the dots! Just after this, we passed a second, larger herd of cattle, all happily grazing away their day beneath the clear blue sky, before five minutes later encountering a deer, who popped her head out of the hedge, spotted us and promptly turned around and legged it. The day was hot now, and so arriving at a section of woodland certainly came as a treat. We walked amongst its cool shade, noting how much thinner the foliage beneath was than that of the wilder Canadian forests. The initial path wasn’t quite where the map said it would be, as woodland trails often are, however this was easily solved.
All too soon we could see the edge of the woodland once more. Before us the path descended through another field of golden crop, which being downhill wasn’t so bad (there were even some chickens at the bottom). However, once we had reached and crossed the road with an old Norman church on our left, we found ourselves staring up at the climbing path that was to be our next challenge. We had spotted it from a distance, and had looked like an intriguing path, however perhaps not on such a searing-sun kind of day. We plodded up the chalky path, stopping at regular intervals to admire the view behind us, as several large birds circled ominously overhead. The gentle breeze did little to ease the sweat, and we finally made it to the top with a sense of relief, knowing that the day’s climbing was over. Even greater relief came when the path left the field edge and diverted back into the shade of the trees for a while. The remainder of the route was a combination of cool, tree lined paths with occasional meadows opening up onto the same type of view to our left that had blessed the start of the day. We eventually arrived back at Lambo corner, descended back down the path toward the carpark, which we managed to overshoot. Retracing our steps up our short but steep mistake, we finally arrived back at the car about three hours after we had left.
We climbed in and immediately blasted the aircon. We had a little time to spare, so decided to stop in at The Kennels on the way, for a sophisticated and well-earned drink. Unfortunately, by the time we joined the queue to get into the grounds of Goodwood, it was a little over thirty minutes from front to back (not helped by all the classic cars over-heating) and so we arrived at the picnic a bit later than planned. Despite this, we still had a lovely afternoon eating, drinking and admiring the fancy cars (I voted for the Lamborghini Huracan LP 640-4 Performante Spyder as the winner, and Beth voted for a VW campervan, just FYI).
Overall, this was a lovely walk, through an area we had admired for some time. I am pleased to say it didn’t disappoint and was the perfect length and position for what we needed for the day – we would definitely do it again! The only thing that might have made it better was a slightly lower temperature, just to take the edge off some of those exposed slopes as the day grew hotter.
Matthew G. Huggins 