And there are many paths to tread, part 10
I've been feeling quite loomed by my fast-approaching Enormous Walk, happening in just over two months. Since I'm not prepared to walk through the night by myself, I can't practise distances even remotely approaching the full 72 miles, but I feel that I need to walk 30+ miles often enough that I can do so without feeling at all weary. So walks of less than 20 miles or so feel as if they Don't Count At All, and I feel as if I've Failed unless I do a high 20s walk at least one a week. The trouble with this is that said walk takes the whole day, and sometimes it's nice to be able to potter around to do other things on a day off, not have to leap out of bed after a mere few chapters in order to get 30 miles in before sunset.
But I do like walking, and interest is being sustained by the fact that, in accordance with my goal of eventually walking All The Paths, I'm seeking out new routes. Since distance is required, I've not generally taken my camera, but these last few days have been so unseasonably glorious that I took it with me on Sunday's walk. Which, as it turned out, mostly involved sheep and cabbages.
On the way out, I followed the Worsley Trail, a way-marked path going from Mottistone Down to Shanklin. From the car park, I've headed west countless times, heading up to Brighstone Down, but the path took me east. Instead of then turning off the path to plunge into Brighstone Forest - the Tennyson Trail back to Newport - I walked on untrodden paths (by me, that is) across Limerstone Down towards Shorwell.
It was gloriously sunny, and within less than a mile I was down to t-shirt sleeves and feeling almost warm in even those, but it was irritatingly hazy. Here was the view from what was marked on my map as a viewpoint. Oh well.
Past a large barn in the middle of nowhere, with Gents signs on bales of hay, and labels marking then as "natural toilets." There was a large picture of an abominable snowman, labelled "Snowman," on the side of the barn, legible from more than a mile away. A fenced-off ramp at the side of the track led to, if not doom, a sharp and surprise descent. It was somewhat mysterious. Equally surprising was the unexpected quarry visible to the north. More than anything, this All The Paths project is showing me how much of the island I don't know, for all my thousands of miles of walking on it.
I crossed Shorwell Shute (do other places call steeply sloping roads "shutes," I wonder, or is it just a island term?) and up onto another Down, with views to the south across a shallow curving valley and another Down. There were sheep. There were many, many sheep.
Some of the sheep were even, apparently, the source of all TV signals, found beneath the mast like a crock of gold beneath a rainbow.
The next few miles involved little country lanes, paths, squelchy stream crossings, scattered farms and tiny hamlets that I'd never heard before: Roslin, Cridmore, Lower Rill and so on. Just a few houses in each case, but the island's small enough, and I've walked on it often enough, that I feel rather taken aback to come across settlement placenames that I've never heard before. Then over the road across Bleak Down (nicer than it sounds), past some boarding kennels full of baying wolves, and then through lanes that sounded as if they better belonged in a story book: Beacon Alley (a narrow sunken lane alarmingly well-used by traffic) and Bagwich Lane.
Godshill Church was clearly visible for a long while before I reached Godshill. It's only when seen from this angle that the whole "hill" part of "godshill" becomes apparent. From the main road, it's just a level road of thatched cottages, gift shops and suicidal tourists, with no hill anywhere visible.
Then came cabbages. Last week, I'd done a similar walk through the inland fields and valley, crossing the Worsley Trail and heading south. There I'd watched a vast field of cabbages being harvested - a task that involved teams of brightly clad people working with special vehicle equipped with a conveyor belt of yellow cabbage-sized egg-cup things. I saw more of them here, too, with the same company name on the vehicles, although here the teams were receiving their briefings before, presumably, being sent out to harvest veg.
I detoured into Godshill for the toilet and for the obligatory tourist shot of the church.
Then up the hill to the foot of Gat Cliff, somewhat disconcerted the sound of gunshots, evident from miles away, was now Very Close Indeed. But I escaped death, and even mortal injury, and squelched my way down the very muddy path beneath the cliff towards Freemantle Gate. I could have detoured up the very steep path to the viewpoint of the Worsley Monument (once an obelisk, but beheaded in an old storm) but since I've slipped over more than once on that particularly steep climb, I decided against it.
Freemantle Gate was once an entrance to Appuldurcombe Park. Well, it still is, but only for walkers, who pass through the little iron wicket gate to the side.
Appuldurcombe House has an impressive 18th century facade, and in the 18th century was the grandest house on the island, but neglect and wartime bombing has turned it into an empty shell. I didn't detour to photograph it, since the light was all wrong. Instead, I headed up St Martin's Down opposite, getting a little lost on the way. I ALWAYS get lost on St Martin's Down, which is veritable maze of footpaths, some of them ending suddenly in uncrossable field boundaries or soul-chilling squelch. The Worsley Trail officially ends in Shanklin Old Village, which I paused at the top of the contours above said village, looking at my watch, bore in mind the time of sunset, and decided to turn round. The official write-up of the trail put it at 13 miles, but I was at 14.5 at this point, still almost a mile short, and had walked slower than expected due to patches of mud. So back I went, pausing only to take a bad picture of Sandown Bay just to prove that I'd almost made it.
On the way back, true to my All The Paths goal, I took alternative paths following a similar overall route. While I was on a different route through Appuldurcombe Park, someone coming the other way said, "Don't look at the lambs!" Um, why not? Would I be struck blind if I committed such sacrilege? "They're too cute," he said.
I looked, I'm afraid. Although I found the chubby, fluffy faces of the not-lambs cuter. The not-lambs also didn't seem to find the lambs that cute, since a second after I took this picture, not-lamb on the right swatted lamb-in-the-middle away with her head. Some of the lambs were VERY teeny, perhaps almost newborn.
Through Freemantle Gate, around to the north of Godshill this time, past many tiny paddocks full of many tiny horses; through the motherlode of cabbage-harvesting vehicles; past Bagwich Farm; crossing Bleak Down at the Chequers, whose status as a roadside coaching inn is all the more obvious when you approach it on foot from farm lanes than when you whizz past it on the road.
Back to the little unknown hamlets, where an ENORMOUS BEAST stared down at me from the hilltop. Who knows why.
Then more sheep. Luminous sheep. Hundreds of luminous sheep all staring at me unblinkingly. It was quite disconcerting.
Past the TV mast again, and along the ridge of the Other Down, the one I'd looked across at many hours before. Then down into Shorwell...
...and gradually up to the top of Limerstone Down again, as the sun began to go down, and an angelic light from above picked out one sheep, one along amongst all the others, to be Chosen.
And then back to the car, just as sunset turned into twilight, and from there to Almost Dark.
But I do like walking, and interest is being sustained by the fact that, in accordance with my goal of eventually walking All The Paths, I'm seeking out new routes. Since distance is required, I've not generally taken my camera, but these last few days have been so unseasonably glorious that I took it with me on Sunday's walk. Which, as it turned out, mostly involved sheep and cabbages.
On the way out, I followed the Worsley Trail, a way-marked path going from Mottistone Down to Shanklin. From the car park, I've headed west countless times, heading up to Brighstone Down, but the path took me east. Instead of then turning off the path to plunge into Brighstone Forest - the Tennyson Trail back to Newport - I walked on untrodden paths (by me, that is) across Limerstone Down towards Shorwell.
It was gloriously sunny, and within less than a mile I was down to t-shirt sleeves and feeling almost warm in even those, but it was irritatingly hazy. Here was the view from what was marked on my map as a viewpoint. Oh well.
Past a large barn in the middle of nowhere, with Gents signs on bales of hay, and labels marking then as "natural toilets." There was a large picture of an abominable snowman, labelled "Snowman," on the side of the barn, legible from more than a mile away. A fenced-off ramp at the side of the track led to, if not doom, a sharp and surprise descent. It was somewhat mysterious. Equally surprising was the unexpected quarry visible to the north. More than anything, this All The Paths project is showing me how much of the island I don't know, for all my thousands of miles of walking on it.
I crossed Shorwell Shute (do other places call steeply sloping roads "shutes," I wonder, or is it just a island term?) and up onto another Down, with views to the south across a shallow curving valley and another Down. There were sheep. There were many, many sheep.
Some of the sheep were even, apparently, the source of all TV signals, found beneath the mast like a crock of gold beneath a rainbow.
The next few miles involved little country lanes, paths, squelchy stream crossings, scattered farms and tiny hamlets that I'd never heard before: Roslin, Cridmore, Lower Rill and so on. Just a few houses in each case, but the island's small enough, and I've walked on it often enough, that I feel rather taken aback to come across settlement placenames that I've never heard before. Then over the road across Bleak Down (nicer than it sounds), past some boarding kennels full of baying wolves, and then through lanes that sounded as if they better belonged in a story book: Beacon Alley (a narrow sunken lane alarmingly well-used by traffic) and Bagwich Lane.
Godshill Church was clearly visible for a long while before I reached Godshill. It's only when seen from this angle that the whole "hill" part of "godshill" becomes apparent. From the main road, it's just a level road of thatched cottages, gift shops and suicidal tourists, with no hill anywhere visible.
Then came cabbages. Last week, I'd done a similar walk through the inland fields and valley, crossing the Worsley Trail and heading south. There I'd watched a vast field of cabbages being harvested - a task that involved teams of brightly clad people working with special vehicle equipped with a conveyor belt of yellow cabbage-sized egg-cup things. I saw more of them here, too, with the same company name on the vehicles, although here the teams were receiving their briefings before, presumably, being sent out to harvest veg.
I detoured into Godshill for the toilet and for the obligatory tourist shot of the church.
Then up the hill to the foot of Gat Cliff, somewhat disconcerted the sound of gunshots, evident from miles away, was now Very Close Indeed. But I escaped death, and even mortal injury, and squelched my way down the very muddy path beneath the cliff towards Freemantle Gate. I could have detoured up the very steep path to the viewpoint of the Worsley Monument (once an obelisk, but beheaded in an old storm) but since I've slipped over more than once on that particularly steep climb, I decided against it.
Freemantle Gate was once an entrance to Appuldurcombe Park. Well, it still is, but only for walkers, who pass through the little iron wicket gate to the side.
Appuldurcombe House has an impressive 18th century facade, and in the 18th century was the grandest house on the island, but neglect and wartime bombing has turned it into an empty shell. I didn't detour to photograph it, since the light was all wrong. Instead, I headed up St Martin's Down opposite, getting a little lost on the way. I ALWAYS get lost on St Martin's Down, which is veritable maze of footpaths, some of them ending suddenly in uncrossable field boundaries or soul-chilling squelch. The Worsley Trail officially ends in Shanklin Old Village, which I paused at the top of the contours above said village, looking at my watch, bore in mind the time of sunset, and decided to turn round. The official write-up of the trail put it at 13 miles, but I was at 14.5 at this point, still almost a mile short, and had walked slower than expected due to patches of mud. So back I went, pausing only to take a bad picture of Sandown Bay just to prove that I'd almost made it.
On the way back, true to my All The Paths goal, I took alternative paths following a similar overall route. While I was on a different route through Appuldurcombe Park, someone coming the other way said, "Don't look at the lambs!" Um, why not? Would I be struck blind if I committed such sacrilege? "They're too cute," he said.
I looked, I'm afraid. Although I found the chubby, fluffy faces of the not-lambs cuter. The not-lambs also didn't seem to find the lambs that cute, since a second after I took this picture, not-lamb on the right swatted lamb-in-the-middle away with her head. Some of the lambs were VERY teeny, perhaps almost newborn.
Through Freemantle Gate, around to the north of Godshill this time, past many tiny paddocks full of many tiny horses; through the motherlode of cabbage-harvesting vehicles; past Bagwich Farm; crossing Bleak Down at the Chequers, whose status as a roadside coaching inn is all the more obvious when you approach it on foot from farm lanes than when you whizz past it on the road.
Back to the little unknown hamlets, where an ENORMOUS BEAST stared down at me from the hilltop. Who knows why.
Then more sheep. Luminous sheep. Hundreds of luminous sheep all staring at me unblinkingly. It was quite disconcerting.
Past the TV mast again, and along the ridge of the Other Down, the one I'd looked across at many hours before. Then down into Shorwell...
...and gradually up to the top of Limerstone Down again, as the sun began to go down, and an angelic light from above picked out one sheep, one along amongst all the others, to be Chosen.
And then back to the car, just as sunset turned into twilight, and from there to Almost Dark.