Catch the 9.24 (Southampton Central) train from Victoria, (9.31 Clapham Junction) *** Note that this train does NOT go via East Croydon, due to engineering works.*** The rail planner shows a change in Horsham (arriving 10.29, departing 10.36), but I suspect this is just the train splitting into a fast (front) portion and a slow (rear) one: but listen out to on-board announcements. You arrive at Billingshurst at 10.46.
Buy a day return to Amberley
Yes, dear reader, this is a bit of a long one, which will put off some of you (though note Shortening the walk below). But today is the last day before the end of the world (aka the clocks going back), so it befits and behoves us to make one a grand gesture.
I am not sure I have ever done this walk in autumn, so we will see how it fares. It starts with a good bit of woodland, and in the middle there is a gentle range of hills. There is a vineyard, a glider airport, and a very nice lunch pub (which can, however, be a little slow at service): it serves lunch till 3pm now, apparently, rather than 2pm as the walk directions say. There is no other lunch option (unless you use the Pulborough to Amberley walk to divert to the pub in Marehill, about a mile away) so possibly bring a sandwich just in case.
At the end of the walk you have a stiff climb up onto the downs and a walk along the top, with wonderful views. In Amberley, the Bridge Inn is always a cosy place to end up, and is right by the station, as all good end of walk pubs should be
Shortening the walk. Switching to the Pulborough to Amberley walk at lunchtime saves 1.5 miles (making it 12.7 miles). You could even do that walk as far as the RSPB Visitor Centre and then short cut back across Pulborough Wild Brooks (if they are not waterlogged...) to Pulborough using the Pulborough Circular walk (section M), which would make for an afternoon of about 4 miles, and a total walk from Billingshurst of 10 miles.
Trains back from Amberley are at 18 past the hour until 20.18, then 21.17 is the last train. By then the dark evenings will have well and truly begun.
2 comments:
Diversionary train journeys are such fun! We took the old mainline route from Victoria via Dorking (before electrification of the Guildford to Havant line in 1933 this was the principal rail route to Portsmouth). As I predicted, no change was needed at Horsham.
13 assembled on the platform. One more was shanghaied by late trains from London Bridge and started the walk half an hour late but caught us before lunch. Four others were at the lunch pub: I am not sure what bits of the walk they did, but they turned up for the walk, so under the SWC Participation Registration Act of 2010 can be included. So n=18.
The rain had stopped by the time we started the walk and it was then a day of w=sun-and-high-cloud. The early stages of the walk were a bit soggy underfoot (hello mud, my old friend: I’ve come to walk with you again…) and the woods were a bit confusing (who moved that three-armed footpath sign?) but no biggies. When I created this walk I thought it had a long morning, but we knocked it off with ease and were not late to the pub.
Nearly everyone ate there. I have criticised this pub in the past for slow service, but after just a bit of ditziness in taking orders, the food came with admirable despatch. We sat in the garden, some of us in sunshine. A red admiral butterfly fed on a rotten apple.
After lunch two did the short walk to Pulborough suggested by the very enlightened walk poster. The mysterious four lunchers did whatever they did. Twelve of us continued on the main walk, experiencing the usual mix of fields with bulls in, empty golf courses (though a full car park: I guess they were all in the bar) and a glider runway. Also lots of fungi, pointed out by our resident expert. Then up onto the downs on a long wooded climb and along the top as the sun went behind a cloud.
Getting to the Bridge Inn, a few got an inside table but most of us were banished to the marquee. Many were rushing for the 6.18 train. Some might have stayed longer but I panicked them into thinking the 7.17 might be cancelled. Instead I took out a small mortgage to buy a bottle of wine from the bar, which two of us drunk on the way home, helped belatedly by a third.
And so back into the maelstrom of maskless youth that is central London on a Saturday night. And home to the Great Darkness.
Actually some of us having ordered earlier got our food last and had to wait ages. It was particularly galling having to watch newer arrivals tuck into their food as we wondered if we had been forgotten. However the pub was welcoming and all the food did arrive eventually and was good.
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