South Downs Way - Day 4

Findon to Cocking
Distance 20.7 miles
Ascent: 650m
Weather: warm and sunny
Butterflies: brimstones, green veined white and small tortoiseshell,  peacock
Kestrels,  buzzard, deer, bunnies,  skylarks,  pheasants,  goldfinches, blackcap.

We started off along the Monarch Way this morning out of Findon. The monarch way is a long path that meanders over England following the route that King Charles II took when he was fleeing after being defeated at the Battle of Worscester before the monarchy was restored. Anyhoo, this morning it seemed quite appropriate that we were walking with the sound of gunfire echoing around the hills and woods.

Amongst this, we saw some bunnies, pheasant and deer that didn't seem particularly bothered by it all.

Between the monarchs way and the South Downs Way we followed a byway, a lovely peaceful walk along a pretty flower lined track.

Up on the south Downs Way,  it got much busier especially so in the vicinity of a car park where we nearly got swallowed up by a massive horde that set off just as we were walking by.

We managed to walk fast enough to get out of earshot by Rackham Hill. There are lots of earthworks and things in italics here.

At Amberley we followed the signs, which led around by the sewage treatment works,  which was rather unpleasant, and then up across the River Arun through a pretty buttercup meadow that was much nicer.

We stopped for lunch at Coombe Wood and then went up to Bury Hill, which is the subject of a poem by John Galsworthy,  of whom I had never heard of before but he's mentioned in the guide book and this part of the route is also part of the Literary Trail. His poem, Bury Hill goes as follows:

To this green hill a something dream-like clings, 
Where day by day the little blunt sheep graze, 
Threading the tussocks and the toadstool rings, 
Nosing the barrows of the olden days. 
An air drifts here that's sweet of sea and grass, 
And down the combe-side living colour glows; 
Spring, Summer, Fall, the chasing seasons pass 
To Winter, even lovelier than those. 

The dream is deep today, when all that's far 
Of wandering water and of darkling wood, 
Of weald and ghost-like Down combinèd are 
In haze below this hill where God has stood. 

Here I, too, stand until the light is gone, 
And feed my wonder, while the sheep graze on.

This was written quite a long time ago,  the hill now being all arable farmland with no little blunt sheep at all.

As the day went on the route became more wooded, and at Grantham Downs we walked through the woodland nature reserves, with the obligatory burial mounds and tumuli, plus Orchids and bluebells.  Rob stopped to put some tape on his foot, and I saw what I think was a blackcap in the trees behind.

A direct path leads to Cocking,  we are staying at The Bluebell Inn where we have been well fed and watered.