Ding-ding, round three!
Yes, with Summer’s passing and Autumn’s arrival, we officially commence our third year of blogging our walks. On a side note, I did some rough calculations the other day. We are currently sitting at seventy-seven walks recorded; however I reckon that we had already gone on thirty to forty-ish walks together in the pre-blog era, and so our actual total is probably more somewhere between 110 and 120, and that’s without including the countless Scotney Castle loops we went on whilst we still spent our weekends in Beth’s Lamberhurst flat.
Anyway, I digress. In the here and now, we began another lap of the seasons. This time around, we are anticipating a less intense walking schedule, and we will not be taking on the challenge of beating last year’s numbers, which frankly were epic. This Sunday found us undertaking one of our all-time favourite walks, with this being our fourth go around. It is one we find best saved for the summer season, and so we wanted to fit it in before autumn took a turn for the damper and muddier, and a little of summer’s radiance remained. Certainly, the day felt hot, and we slathered on the suncream before leaving. We parked up outside the Co-op in Cranbrook and headed out down the high street and through the churchyard. As we passed the large church, we noted the stiff breeze and were glad for it, as we knew that it was going to prove our best defence against the high temperatures in the air around us.
The first chunk of the route is a long straight line out of Cranbrook, along a section of footpath shared with the Sissinghurst Circular we had done earlier in the year. We then turn right down a road, where soon after we begin to strike out through the middle of the long swath of farmland, which makes up the heart of this particular walk. Being a little later in the agricultural calendar, what is often swaying grasses and long crops was already harvested, but that was okay, and we made good progress through the fields. My bird app also picked up the sound of a Kestrel, which was both cool and a first! Shortly after, we made it to what is one of our least favourite bits of road walking within our entire roster of walks, as it is both fast and quite long. Fortunately, there is enough verge to comfortably climb onto to let cars pass safely, so there were no issues, and then we entered the day’s largest spell of woodland walking. We had managed to get lost here before, but have since learnt the route well. We have also found these paths to be very muddy, but thankfully summer’s dryness still held, and it was possibly the easiest going we have ever had amongst these particular trees! As we made our way around the outside of the posh school, we managed to interrupt someone recording a story time, and now someone somewhere has a recording of Beth talking about peeing. Just beyond, we arrived at a wide, scrubby field which often has cattle in it. Indeed, the evidence suggested that they were once again present, however we saw neither hoof nor hide of them as we made our way around the edge and out the gate sitting in the opposite corner.
Just up the road was Benenden, and our almost halfway stopping point of the pub. We have come to quite like this quiet little village with its large, well-kept green at the centre. This has been helped no end by The Bull, one of our very favourite pubs and home to our favourite cider. We headed happily toward the familiar garden and took our seats at a small, round, metal table perched on the corner opposite the green. Beth went in to get us a pint each, and a few minutes later I was greeted with the sight of my wife walking toward me on a sunny day, holding two beautiful, golden ciders in her hands. The cider in question is Angry Orchard, and The Bull is, so far, the only place we have found that serves it. As the first sips hit our lips, we were pleased to find the crisp, rich drink was as perfect as ever. We sat quite happily in the sunshine for what turned out to be a somewhat extended pause, during which time we sank another pint and a half, and Beth gave me the tentative nod to look into buying a little sports car – what an unexpected result! Naturally, having drunk an entire pint to herself, she was also a bit pissed by the time we rose to our feet, which resulted in a quick, impromptu sit-down on the green.
We walked past the church and out the back of Benenden, to begin the second half of the route. Thanks entirely to our regular pub stops, this initial section has always proved a little more challenging for us than it might otherwise have. The fields slope steadily downhill here to begin with, until we reach the true halfway point of the day, at which point we turn sharply back up the hill we had just descended. It is not a long, nor particularly steep hill, but this, combined with legs still warming up from their rest and the cider, makes for a little bit of a challenge. In fact, on this occasion, as soon as we had climbed back up the majority of the hill, we plonked ourselves down in the grass for some lunch and much-needed refuelling. Today, we would both be trying margherita-inspired wraps with a dip, which turned out to be rather scrumptious.
The sky had turned a little grey by this point, however the wind had also died down, leaving behind a warm and sticky day. As we made our way around the outskirts of Benenden and back through the school grounds, we finally came across the herd of cows which we knew must be somewhere. A small cow pat running along the footpath suggested bovine movement, and we found them just a couple of fields away. The grass they were grazing was still very long, and we can only imagine that they had been moved from the other paddock only a few days previously. Either way, there they were, small and sweet. Technically, our route passed them by, however a footpath sign indicated that we were able to go into their field – so in we went for a closer look. A trio of cows stood grazing right across the path, and I slowly walked closer. I offered out a hand, which the one on the left tentatively lent toward. She gave it a sniff and then decided that was enough. She took a few steps back, and turned away with her fellows, to carry on the important task of grazing. So, we too turned back to our own task and left them to it.
We left both the school and Benenden behind, striking back out across the same span of farms that makes up the first half. On our passage we spotted a few more cows, a colourful array of autumnal fruits, a spattering of small sunflowers and a couple flocks of sheep. Aside from the stickiness, the return to Cranbrook was just as smooth sailing as the way out had been, and before we knew it we were stepping back out into what we recognised as the outskirts of Cranbrook. On the way back in we noted evidence of wasps on a few oak leaves and paused for a brief sit on Beth’s favourite (UK) bench. We then walked back across green, the sound of leaves crunching beneath our boots; an echo of things to come.
We got back to the car just shy of five hours after we had left, which was a pretty good pace, particularly with a forty-five-minute pit stop in the middle! Once again, we very much enjoyed this walk, which, now we know it so well (in fact, neither map nor instructions were used all day), is a fairly simple and easy loop with a 10/10 pub in the middle – would definitely recommend, and we will just as certainly be back again.
Matthew G. Huggins 