T=1.34 Length: 17.2km (10.7) miles
Toughness: 6 out of 10
Trains: Take the 10.05 from London Bridge (10.19 East Croydon) to Balcombe arriving 10.46.
Trains back from East Grinstead to London Victoria run at xx.06 and xx.36.
Tickets: Off peak single tickets are recommended as Balcombe and East Grinstead are on different lines. If you have a travel card up to zone 6, buy tickets from there to Balcombe and back from East Grinstead.
Lunch: For elevenses or an early lunch, you could stop at Wakehurst Place, about 5km (3 miles) from the start: the Seed Café is in the Visitor Centre.
For a pub lunch, the suggested lunchtime stop, 8.4 km into the walk, is the Cat Inn (tel 01342 810 369) in West Hoathly.
Picnickers may congregate around the church in West Hoathly.
Tea: The suggested tea stop is The Old Dunnings Mill pub (tel 01342 821 080), about 2km before the end of the walk. Allow 30 minutes from here to reach the station.
For more details L=1.34
1 comment:
#9 on the walk in #sunny-then-overcast-and-humid weather. Having only done this walk in the muddy season before, it was nice to do it with mostly dry paths and the route festooned with chicory, Canadian goldenrod, camomile and other members of the daisy family. Some delightful bits of forest too.
There was a problematic section between Wakehurst and West Hoathly where we somehow got separated from the path by a sticky wet muddy ditch. Most waded, jumped or otherwise picked their way across. Two back markers found a better route and avoided the issue, but it led to the party being quite strung out by the time we got to lunch.
Before that we had lost two circling back to Balcombe, but 6 of the remaining 7 regrouped in the Cat Inn, where three sandwichers had drinks and the others had efficiently served pies or mussels which were pronounced very good.
The afternoon seemed quite long, especially the bit round the reservoir, so four of us stopped for more welcome refreshments at the Old Dunning Mills before getting the 1706 train by the skin of our teeth. Thanks Wanderer for posting, a fine day out.
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