St Swithuns Way - Day 2 and North Downs Way Day 0

Alton to Farnham
Distance: 16 miles
Ascent: 180m
Weather: warm and sunny
Buzzards, deer, red kite, long-tailed tit, french partridge,  bunnies, horses that can't spell (or win), Austin Healeys 

As we left Alton this morning, a lady pulled up in her car to ask us something about the ramblers, not sure what as a truck went past, possibly were we looking for them, did we want to join them, or did we know where she could find them... It seems they are an illusive lot. We just said no.

Today's walk could potentially have been quite boring,  as it follows the side of the A31 road, but as it happened it was very pleasant and although we were in earshot of the road it was not intrusive and we rarely saw it.

We had a sit on Walter's bench, with views across the fields - buzzards were circling overhead and there was a small herd of deer. It was very peaceful.

A short distance on, we walked by a reservoir (or, more accurately, pond) and were passed by a horde of noisy ramblers, one of whom joked we were going the wrong way. Nope.

The path was mostly along and through fields,  with some woodland and a few bits along lanes through pretty villages.

In Upper Froyle we saw gnarly trees in the church yard, Hampshire sheep and very pretty thatched cottages. A wooded drive led towards the grounds of Pax Hill which  was once the home of Lord Baden-Powell,  now a nursing home.

The day was warm and still, and the butterflies were out in force - we'd not seen many earlier in the week.

At Farnham we stopped at the castle (worth the entrance donation to use the loos) and had a look at the keep and battlements,  and had a picnic.

St Swithun's Way ends in Farnham, which is a pretty little town with terrible traffic.

The North Downs Way begins near to the train station,  on a horrible junction with many pedestrian crossing buttons and many pedestrians taking their lives in their hands.

Thankfully we soon left the side of the dual carriageway, and walked down a leafy track where there is a commemorative bench for the start of the Way (not sure what was carved into it, possibly a thistle,  possibly something else) and up into a pretty nature reserve at Furze Hill. Here the footpath that we'd meant to take down to our accommodation stop had been moved, due to a landfill site, so we took the next one and had to walk down a very busy little road that was rather worrying for a couple hundred yards but from the t junction there was a pavement. Opposite the pub there is the end of the footpath that we would have taken,  and Rob had a bit of an investigate.  We shall attempt it in the morning to avoid the road.

We are staying at The Princess Royal, a Fuller's pub - they have Sky Sports so we were able to watch the end of the test match.

St Swithuns Way - Day 1

Winchester to Alton
Distance: 22 miles
Ascent: 600m
Weather: mostly sunny,  brief shower
Two deer (I saw two, Rob saw one and heard one), fox, more fast fish, an interesting beetle, squirrels, hare, no bunnies,  pigs, nosy cows, kestrel, buzzards.
Horrible big Chinese dragon/lion things: 4

After posting yesterday's blog, we went out on the town. We borrowed a cute union jack umbrella and visited the cathedral, with rainbow adornment, and then had a pint in the Royal Oak, which claims to be the oldest pub in England but frankly we didn't see much evidence of this. The beer was good though.

We had waffles for breakfast.

St Swithun's Way leads eastwards out of Winchester by the River Itchen, along with numerous other footpaths, and may have given me slightly higher expectations of the footpath's condition than could be sustained throughout the day.

The day started through the Itchen Valley nature reserve, which is beautiful and we saw many critters, and met a chap who was photographing beetles.

The St Swithuns Way goes much the same way as the Itchen Way (which with hindsight is probably a nicer walk), the King's Way, The Three Castles Way and the Oxdrove Way.

There are lots of big posh houses along here and we were able to have a good look into their back gardens.  Or grounds, which might be a better expression.

We have seen quite a few bonfires recently and there was an especially large one this morning,  turning the sky an interesting orangey brown colour, and we joked that it was appropriate to light pyres on an saint's pilgrimage route. Turns out the village was called Martyr Worthy.

We were met (a couple of times)  by Dad and Diane, with their dogs Holly and Ben, outside Ovington and we walked a little then stopped for a pub lunch at The Bush. After a lovely hour of good food and catching up,  we continued on.

The route of the trail now became less well signed, more overgrown and the stiles in often distinctly dilapidated conditions. From Teg's Down Road to Park Lane above New Barn, the Way disappeared completely in a rapeseed oil field,  and we followed cut path which thankfully came out at a stile at the other side. We saw a fox along here, and later another deer also emerged from a similar field.

Quite a lot of the way is along track lanes and by the side of minor roads, but there were also some very nice bits through Old Down Wood and New Copse, where we stopped for some tea (fancy green tea), leftover pork pie from lunch, and biscuits, in amongst a carpet of bluebells,  stitchwort, cuckooflower and dead nettles.

Then we followed the disused railway line into Chawton, where we passed Jane Austen's house and museum (shut by this time), and then used the Jane Austin underpass, into Alton. We are staying at The Swan, which is very comfortable and does a nice pint of Hogs Back T.E.A.