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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday 13 June 2015

Saturday Third Walk – the South Downs above Chichester

Extra Walk 239 – Halnaker to Chichester
Length: 22.9 km (14.2 miles). Toughness: 7/10

09:02 Portsmouth Harbour & Bognor Regis train from Victoria (Clapham Jct 09:08, East Croydon 09:18), arriving Chichester at 10:34. You need to be in the front (Portsmouth) part of the train. Buy a day return to Chichester.

On arrival I suggest postponing the polite round of introductions on the platform. Instead, march smartly to the nearby Bus Station where a Tangmere-bound Stagecoach 55 leaves from Bay 6 at 10:40 (see the Walk Directions for details of the short link route). The buses are half-hourly so it's not a disaster if you miss the connection, but it's going to be a long day so make every effort to catch it. Alight at Halnaker crossroads to start the walk.

Direct trains back from Chichester to Victoria are half-hourly at 11 & 41 minutes past until 17:41, then 18:12, 18:37 and hourly from 19:07. If you just miss one of the hourly ones, take a Brighton train at 25 minutes past and change at Barnham.

This long and hilly walk in a hitherto-undiscovered part of the South Downs was enthusiastically received on its Valentines Day début four months ago, so it will surely get even more rapturous reviews in the mud-free days of mid-June. There are quite a few steep hills as you make your way across the valleys in this part of the downs, but the walk document describes a few shortcuts for the faint-hearted.

The suggested lunch stop is the Partridge Inn in the village of Singleton, described last time as offering “tasty fare”. This is halfway through the walk but there are a couple of earlier alternatives if you don't think you'll reach it in time. There's a long list of tea places in Chichester.

You'll need to print the walk directions from this pdf document.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I intend joining this walk.

Thomas G said...

n=7 w=sunny-with-diminishing-clouds
3 of the 7 had been on the walk-check in February as well, so only 4 newbies to this walk, disappointingly. the rest missed out on a very good day out...
It was muddy in the woods in the morning from the heavy overnight rainfall, but we had a good walking surface thereafter; the sky was getting bluer during the day, therefore we had wonderful (if a bit hazy) far views when it mattered: in the afternoon; excellent food was had again in The Partridge, in Singleton, this time out in the back garden, then we went on to the village fete at the cricket ground, where the raffle was raided by the girls, while the horseshoe-tossing attempts were as unsuccessful as the first ever bowled over by the undersigned (I hit the stumps once, but with an illegal arm movement, or some such, apparently); then up to St. Roche's Hill, from where said views were had.
5 stayed on for drinks in Chichester, 4 then had the tenacity to stay on for dinner in Chichester as well, plus another drink upon arrival in Victoria Station. Not to forget the raffle-won bottle of plonk on the train... Back home at midnight. Very nice walk (but I would say that).