Bank holiday walk

A bank holiday – and a great day for a walk; so we laced up the walking shoes, adjusted the poles, packed the rucksacks and set off with a map and a vague idea of a round trip of some 16kms. We began the usual way by getting up to Pewley Down, then across to St Martha’s Church.


At this point we walked round to the front of the church and took the path that plunged over the edge and down towards Chilworth.


Suddenly we spied llamas in the field and a lone one in a paddock close by the path – a sight to behold in the Surrey countryside.


We consulted the map and made a sort of left turn, hoping to connect with the Downs Link path. Soon we began seeing the signs and this path took us across Blackheath to skirt round the path up to Chinthurst Tower.


From here we followed the track taking us across the attractive double bridge (road with footpath at a slightly dropped level) and turned left to follow the Wey South Path going north. There were lots of dandelion clocks along the path some of which had shed their down to get caught in spiders webs. There were also some high altitude snails, like the ones we had seen in Smannell.



We found ourselves following the cycle route, but we could cut right just over a bridge, which brought us along the Wey to the Parrot at Shalford. We sat by the Navigation and had butties, then enjoyed a hot cup of coffee at the Parrot. The next bit was something like guesswork as there are several paths not all of which were on the map. But we managed to get ourselves to The Seahorse, another popular hostelry, and across the road towards the Chantries.



Our intention was to come onto Pewley Downs at the bottom of the woods, but we managed to climb right up into the bluebell covered woods, which were beautiful.


There was nothing for it, but to make our way up and over the ridge, eventually meeting up with our path to St Martha’s hill, turning left to retrace the start of our walk up onto Pewley Down and home.
We did get wet a couple of times, but the weather was very pleasant if a little dull and so it wasn’t too hot. The birds were singing all the way along and there were loads of lovely wild flowers to enjoy along the way. We even heard the cuckoo.





It was very good to be out and about with no worries of traffic jams or crowds. We met a few cyclists and a few horse riders as well as walkers on the way, but not in any great profusion. Lovely!