Adventure on the North Downs.
Current thoughts on my mule: bbhdsfwerjeot[g ADORABLE. I love him so much I can't talk about him coherently. He's awesome. He's put his nose into the halter two days in a row, now, when I go to catch him. And when I take his halter off at the end of our session, he stays with me. :)
Anyway. Today I mostly had a day off, so Ben and I went adventuring in the North Downs. We started at St Martha-on-the-hill, a 12th century church, and transcribed a circuitous route down in the weald and back up again (today's educational insight: 'weald' is related to 'wald', the German word for forest. At the time of the Saxon invasion the entire valley would have been thickly forested, and a pretty dangerous place to be). Along the way we explored the ruins of the Gunpowder Mill, which was seriously awesome - I'm fascinated by the idea of buildings returning to nature, and it was really cool to see it up close.
The view from St Martha's churchyard. We live on the horizon line somewhere! None of my photos of the church itself are worth reproducing, but luckily Google comes to the rescue.
We took the route less traveled down into the woods, which was nice as it meant there were hardly any people about and we got to enjoy the bluebells all by ourselves.
Action glenatron!
Ben very rarely smiles in photos. I'm not sure why. It's nice when he does. :)
A wild Ben appears...
Counting the age of one of the (many) fallen trees; a relic from those awful gales we had earlier this year.
The Tillingbourne, which was used to power the Gunpowder Mill. Fast fact: 'bourne' is from an Old English word, brunna, meaning stream.
There was a fallen tree across it that I naturally had to climb on.
Another action Ben!
Part of the Gunpowder Mill. Can you see it? There was an explosion here in 1901, killing 6 people. It was the worst explosion in the history of gunpowder mills. Considering it only fell out of service a hundred years or so ago, I think it's incredible how much the vegetation has taken hold.
I don't think the photos convey the scale of the place very well, but - what remained of it - was massive.
Looking down into one of the rooms.
I then very nearly fell down the stairs in my hurry to join Ben and explore, but luckily I saved myself by slamming my hand into the wall. Unfortunately I used the same hand that was holding my camera. :| Luckily, it seems to be unscathed...
Looking up to try and give you an idea of the scale.
The original swingbridge of the tramway; the rails needed to move, as the stream was used by punts to ferry various items around the site.
More ruins.
Then we made our way back to the church, via the bluebell studded woods.
A white bluebell! A whitebell?
And these are some deer that I disturbed during a solo walk later in the day.
We had lunch at a pub on the halfway point, which turned out to be South African themed - I ate springbok, which was delicious! My quest to eat various animals continues admirably.
Anyway. Today I mostly had a day off, so Ben and I went adventuring in the North Downs. We started at St Martha-on-the-hill, a 12th century church, and transcribed a circuitous route down in the weald and back up again (today's educational insight: 'weald' is related to 'wald', the German word for forest. At the time of the Saxon invasion the entire valley would have been thickly forested, and a pretty dangerous place to be). Along the way we explored the ruins of the Gunpowder Mill, which was seriously awesome - I'm fascinated by the idea of buildings returning to nature, and it was really cool to see it up close.
The view from St Martha's churchyard. We live on the horizon line somewhere! None of my photos of the church itself are worth reproducing, but luckily Google comes to the rescue.
We took the route less traveled down into the woods, which was nice as it meant there were hardly any people about and we got to enjoy the bluebells all by ourselves.
Action glenatron!
Ben very rarely smiles in photos. I'm not sure why. It's nice when he does. :)
A wild Ben appears...
Counting the age of one of the (many) fallen trees; a relic from those awful gales we had earlier this year.
The Tillingbourne, which was used to power the Gunpowder Mill. Fast fact: 'bourne' is from an Old English word, brunna, meaning stream.
There was a fallen tree across it that I naturally had to climb on.
Another action Ben!
Part of the Gunpowder Mill. Can you see it? There was an explosion here in 1901, killing 6 people. It was the worst explosion in the history of gunpowder mills. Considering it only fell out of service a hundred years or so ago, I think it's incredible how much the vegetation has taken hold.
I don't think the photos convey the scale of the place very well, but - what remained of it - was massive.
Looking down into one of the rooms.
I then very nearly fell down the stairs in my hurry to join Ben and explore, but luckily I saved myself by slamming my hand into the wall. Unfortunately I used the same hand that was holding my camera. :| Luckily, it seems to be unscathed...
Looking up to try and give you an idea of the scale.
The original swingbridge of the tramway; the rails needed to move, as the stream was used by punts to ferry various items around the site.
More ruins.
Then we made our way back to the church, via the bluebell studded woods.
A white bluebell! A whitebell?
And these are some deer that I disturbed during a solo walk later in the day.
We had lunch at a pub on the halfway point, which turned out to be South African themed - I ate springbok, which was delicious! My quest to eat various animals continues admirably.