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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 19 January 2019

Saturday Walk: Attractive Amberley – from below and above

SWC Walk 11:  Amberley Circular with possible Arundel Extension T=SWC.11

Distance:  11.4 Miles or 17.8 km for those more metrically minded (or 15.1 miles/24.2 km with extension)

Difficulty:  5 out of 10

Train:  Take the 9:36 AM Southhampton/Bognor Regis train from London Victoria (stopping at Clapham Junction at 9:43 and East Croydon at 9:53), arriving at Amberley at 10:57.  Return trains from Amberley are at 17 past the hour until 21:17 and from Arundel at 13 and 46 past the hour until 21:46. Buy a day return to Amberley or, if planning on doing the extension, Arundel. 

This walk always makes a very enjoyable day out with a gentle start along the foot of the Downs just above a wetlands preserve and a dramatic finish following the ridge of the Downs back to Amberley.  It is also possible to extend the walk by doing any of the Amberley to Arundel legs of SWC Walk 100, either along the Arun river or more energetically up and over the Downs through Arundel Park.  If conditions merit, those of a more adventurous nature could defer the start of the extension with a stop at the always charming Bridge Inn near Amberley Station and complete this final segment in the light of a near full moon (the route along the river would be recommended if walking in moonlight).  You can find more information about the walk and download the walk instructions here and the extension here.

The recommended lunch spot is the Crown Inn (01903-742-625) in Cootham (5.5 miles/8.2 km into the walk). Tea and other late afternoon refreshments can be had at the Bridge Inn near Amberley Station. 

Enjoy the walk!

1 comment:

Walker said...

N=12 on this walk in conditions that might be described as “atmospheric”, aka w=light-rain-and-drizzle. The rain was in the morning, when there was also mist on the “tops”, but this lifted a bit to give reasonable views from the ridge in the afternoon.

Despite the conditions we were a happy crew. Four were happier than most, deciding to stop at the Black Horse in Amberley three miles in to toast its reopening with prosecco. The rest of us caused slight consternation by arriving at the lunch pub ahead of the rest of the group. Parliamentary Brexit discussions are nothing compared to the Byzantine negotiations needed to persuade them to take our order before our mates arrived. Heartfelt pleas were made on behalf of the kitchen, for whom cooking five meals at once is apparently much harder than nine. But unlike in our nation’s political life, compromise was reached. They agreed to take our food order so long as we did that at the table, and so long as we bought our drinks at the bar. This eminently logical arrangement being agreed on, the food came rapidly and in huge portions.

Nature notes on this walk included two large patches of snowdrops, pretty much in full flower, and a flock of siskins, noticed only by me. Also a red kite (of the bird variety) circling over the downs: have they got this far south, then? There was lots of mud, especially on the climb up to the downs where it was surprisingly thick and gloopy. Well, we got away with it for this long, so we can’t complain.

We arrived at The Bridge by 4.50pm or so (many earlier), where low cloud scotched plans for moonlight extensions to Arundel. Instead there was a mad rush for the 5.17 train, though four of us stayed for the 6.17. During a pleasant hour in the pub we scarcely talked about Brexit at all. Honestly, we didn’t.....,