Newenden, day 1, a set on Flickr.
Travelling to our holiday home in Newenden, Kent, via Rudyard Kipling's home in Burwash, Bateman's.
Showing posts with label Burwash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burwash. Show all posts
Saturday, 10 September 2011
Friday, 2 October 2009
Day 6, drivearound
Rather than exhaust ourselves on another walk on our last day on holiday, we decided to go on a drive around several places that we had on our list but which we never got around to visiting. Any future trip out this way, not unlikely given how successful this trip has been, might take some of these in more closely.
Our first stop was Goudhurst, a village on top of a little hill. Definitely something of a nice stop for a hike, but a little empty for us in culture-vulture mode. As with many of the East Sussex / Kent villages, it has a great church bang in the centre of town. Although this, and the town in general, was under siege from Jehovah's Witnesses while we were visiting, we had a good look around and in it ...
Next up was Lamberhurst, actually immediately to the north of Bewl Water. We didn't stop in the village itself, but instead dropped by its church ...
After an abortive trip to Scotney Castle, a nearby, but dull-looking National Trust site, we then headed back east to Cranbrook, a much larger village that afforded lunch and another church visit. This time the church was all decked out in its harvest festival finest, as can be seen in the scattering of apples and adornments to the baptismal font here ...
Cranbrook also sports a great windmill near its centre. It's essentially a museum these days (one that was shut when we visited), but I believe that it's still functional when it wants to be ...
Our final stop for the day was at a nearby vineyard. We had a quick look around the vines (which were being picked while we were there), before exploiting its shop as a source of birthday / holiday presents. Rather nicely, we also got to sample a few whites, a red and a rose that they produce. The whites were very nice, but the red wasn't as full-bodied as we're used to - possibly on account of more limited growing conditions for red grapes.
Full set of drivearound photographs available here.
On returning to Burwash, we chilled out to make the most of another beautiful sunny day, before getting ourselves ready for the trip back to Southampton. Burwash has been a great holiday venue, particularly because of the barn itself. Needless to say, a round of holiday home snaps resulted.
Full set of barn photographs available here.
Our first stop was Goudhurst, a village on top of a little hill. Definitely something of a nice stop for a hike, but a little empty for us in culture-vulture mode. As with many of the East Sussex / Kent villages, it has a great church bang in the centre of town. Although this, and the town in general, was under siege from Jehovah's Witnesses while we were visiting, we had a good look around and in it ...
Next up was Lamberhurst, actually immediately to the north of Bewl Water. We didn't stop in the village itself, but instead dropped by its church ...
After an abortive trip to Scotney Castle, a nearby, but dull-looking National Trust site, we then headed back east to Cranbrook, a much larger village that afforded lunch and another church visit. This time the church was all decked out in its harvest festival finest, as can be seen in the scattering of apples and adornments to the baptismal font here ...
Cranbrook also sports a great windmill near its centre. It's essentially a museum these days (one that was shut when we visited), but I believe that it's still functional when it wants to be ...
Our final stop for the day was at a nearby vineyard. We had a quick look around the vines (which were being picked while we were there), before exploiting its shop as a source of birthday / holiday presents. Rather nicely, we also got to sample a few whites, a red and a rose that they produce. The whites were very nice, but the red wasn't as full-bodied as we're used to - possibly on account of more limited growing conditions for red grapes.
Full set of drivearound photographs available here.
On returning to Burwash, we chilled out to make the most of another beautiful sunny day, before getting ourselves ready for the trip back to Southampton. Burwash has been a great holiday venue, particularly because of the barn itself. Needless to say, a round of holiday home snaps resulted.
Full set of barn photographs available here.
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Day 5, Bewl Water
Looking around for a walk to do, we spotted nearby Bewl Water. It's another reservoir, much like Darwell Reservoir on our Brightling walk, but has an activity centre and a full round-lake path.
After ruling out cycling around the path on grounds of prohibitive cost (you'd think such an operation might drop its prices off-season), we decided to just walk out one edge of the lake then back, and then to try our luck elsewhere. But easy walking, nice views of oast houses over water and an impressive (early) average walking speed (3.5 mph), persuaded us to do all 20 km (12.4 mi) ...
As mentioned above, one of the attractions for us, and one of the reasons that it mutated from a 3-mile round trip into the full 12 miles, was because it had no shortage of attractive views of the aforementioned oast houses. And because, as the track picture above shows, the path wriggled its way around the lake, we often got multiple views of these. This one we saw from far and near ...
Actually, there isn't a huge amount more to say about the walk. The path was, with a few roadwork-related hiccups, extremely easy to follow. And the weather was, again, excellent. So it was a enjoyable and straightforward walk around a rather inlet-heavy, but pretty, lake ...
... At least for the first 10 km! The second 10 km, while still very easy walking, gradually became more of a chore. But the walk did give us something of a sense of achievement since it's the longest one-day walk we've done for quite a while. Some days we've come quite close in length when summed up over the full day, but this is the longest formal route we've walked in years (and it isn't even all that long!).
Anyway, it was very pleasant to return to the activity centre and claim our coffees. It was also surprising to find that, including a lunch stop, we'd managed to maintain an impressive (for us) average speed of 3.1 mph. Admittedly, the path, being around a lake, was largely flat walking, but this is still a good speed for our walks (our moving average even stuck at 3.5 mph).
The evening's entertainment this time was the glossy, nonsense techno-thriller Swordfish, another hauled from the barn's large DVD library. Unlike Mystery Alaska, which somewhat surprised us as a minor success, this time we got more-or-less what we expected. Its saving grace was that its running time was sub-100 minutes, so it only just outstayed its welcome.
Full set of photographs available here.
After ruling out cycling around the path on grounds of prohibitive cost (you'd think such an operation might drop its prices off-season), we decided to just walk out one edge of the lake then back, and then to try our luck elsewhere. But easy walking, nice views of oast houses over water and an impressive (early) average walking speed (3.5 mph), persuaded us to do all 20 km (12.4 mi) ...
As mentioned above, one of the attractions for us, and one of the reasons that it mutated from a 3-mile round trip into the full 12 miles, was because it had no shortage of attractive views of the aforementioned oast houses. And because, as the track picture above shows, the path wriggled its way around the lake, we often got multiple views of these. This one we saw from far and near ...
Actually, there isn't a huge amount more to say about the walk. The path was, with a few roadwork-related hiccups, extremely easy to follow. And the weather was, again, excellent. So it was a enjoyable and straightforward walk around a rather inlet-heavy, but pretty, lake ...
... At least for the first 10 km! The second 10 km, while still very easy walking, gradually became more of a chore. But the walk did give us something of a sense of achievement since it's the longest one-day walk we've done for quite a while. Some days we've come quite close in length when summed up over the full day, but this is the longest formal route we've walked in years (and it isn't even all that long!).
Anyway, it was very pleasant to return to the activity centre and claim our coffees. It was also surprising to find that, including a lunch stop, we'd managed to maintain an impressive (for us) average speed of 3.1 mph. Admittedly, the path, being around a lake, was largely flat walking, but this is still a good speed for our walks (our moving average even stuck at 3.5 mph).
The evening's entertainment this time was the glossy, nonsense techno-thriller Swordfish, another hauled from the barn's large DVD library. Unlike Mystery Alaska, which somewhat surprised us as a minor success, this time we got more-or-less what we expected. Its saving grace was that its running time was sub-100 minutes, so it only just outstayed its welcome.
Full set of photographs available here.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Day 4, Rye and atomic Dungeness
We travelled a bit further out today, down to the southeast and the coastline around Rye and the Dungeness. We began with an easy hike around an SSSI adjacent to Rye Harbour ...
The walk took us on an almost triangular route around a protected coastal ecosystem. The foreshore was a large shingle beach, almost certainly formed by longshore drift, and clearly still on the move judging from the dilapidated groynes all along it ...
The shingle was home to a rather strange cabbage-like plant that formed irregular sparse coverage. The plants were a little desert-like in their distribution, but I couldn't think of what might be limiting them and causing this pattern. Though the SSSI was ostensibly home to a range of rare and protected species (which were nicely illustrated by mosaics), we didn't really come across much obvious wildlife. We did see more goats again, however.
Much more obvious, though distant, were two sources of power generation on the coastline. Just south of Rye we could see a large array of wind turbines, although they weren't up to much as our visit coincided with slack winds. Further off in the distance was a series of rectangular buildings that related to an altogether different carbon-free technology ...
After completing our walk (7.4 km; 4.6 mi) we headed up to the town of Rye itself. It's a nice little maze of cobbled and car-hostile streets where, somewhat to our surprise, the novelist Henry James once lived. Though small, it has its own little castle (complete with balls) and a large and well-provisioned church. After grabbing lunch at a little collective supporting adults with learning difficulties, we did a bit of exploring ...
We then headed out towards Dungeness, stopping off along the way for a closer peak at the first of the area's non-fossil fuel power sources ...
Arriving at the rather desolately beautiful Dungeness headland, our first stop was Prospect Cottage ...
This is a "cottage garden" created by the film-maker and artist Derek Jarman. Being located in the alien environment of Dungeness and rising out of the shingle there, the garden is a rather bizarre version of the rural idyll beloved of chocolate boxes (and one well-provisioned with the "sea cabbages" already mentioned). I'm guessing that's what Jarman was after when he originally created it. Well, that and locating his homage to cosy English living in the evocative and seemingly threatening shadow of Dungeness nuclear power station ...
This is the first nuclear power station that I've gotten up close to, and the setting certainly helped amp up the atmosphere. Firstly, the desolate shingle gives the area the air of a science fiction world, helped when we visited by its framing with a grey sky and sea. Secondly, the area is populated either by small cottages surrounded by junk, or simply by large piles of seeming marine debris, including beached boats and battered shipping containers. These pile on the futurism by giving Dungeness an end-of-the-world feel that wouldn't be out of place in Half-Life 2.
Surprisingly, but at the same time not surprisingly, the area is host to a small community of artists, of which Jarman was once part (he may even have been in the vanguard, but I suspect not). While investigating the displayed works of one painter (Paddy Hamilton, we later discovered), we were invited into his studio and got the low-down on his work and inspiration. One of his series of paintings was of the vehicles that visited Dungeness. It transpired that these belong to a population of transients attracted to the cheap living and isolation of the headland. The paintings themselves were interesting, but the stories behind each gave them an unexpected depth.
All that said, the power station is a pretty anodyne feature. While we were wandering around there was essentially no discernible activity or noise from the station. Quite different from the industrial landscapes around my work, which are always busy or noisy or both. In fact, what activity there was stemmed from the fair number of curious visitors who'd travelled to the tip of the headland to see the reactor buildings. Perhaps because they didn't glow, but just invisibly and silently produced power, people tended not to stay very long, and neither did we. A flurry of photographs, and we headed back inland to Burwash.
Full set of photographs available here.
The walk took us on an almost triangular route around a protected coastal ecosystem. The foreshore was a large shingle beach, almost certainly formed by longshore drift, and clearly still on the move judging from the dilapidated groynes all along it ...
The shingle was home to a rather strange cabbage-like plant that formed irregular sparse coverage. The plants were a little desert-like in their distribution, but I couldn't think of what might be limiting them and causing this pattern. Though the SSSI was ostensibly home to a range of rare and protected species (which were nicely illustrated by mosaics), we didn't really come across much obvious wildlife. We did see more goats again, however.
Much more obvious, though distant, were two sources of power generation on the coastline. Just south of Rye we could see a large array of wind turbines, although they weren't up to much as our visit coincided with slack winds. Further off in the distance was a series of rectangular buildings that related to an altogether different carbon-free technology ...
After completing our walk (7.4 km; 4.6 mi) we headed up to the town of Rye itself. It's a nice little maze of cobbled and car-hostile streets where, somewhat to our surprise, the novelist Henry James once lived. Though small, it has its own little castle (complete with balls) and a large and well-provisioned church. After grabbing lunch at a little collective supporting adults with learning difficulties, we did a bit of exploring ...
We then headed out towards Dungeness, stopping off along the way for a closer peak at the first of the area's non-fossil fuel power sources ...
Arriving at the rather desolately beautiful Dungeness headland, our first stop was Prospect Cottage ...
This is a "cottage garden" created by the film-maker and artist Derek Jarman. Being located in the alien environment of Dungeness and rising out of the shingle there, the garden is a rather bizarre version of the rural idyll beloved of chocolate boxes (and one well-provisioned with the "sea cabbages" already mentioned). I'm guessing that's what Jarman was after when he originally created it. Well, that and locating his homage to cosy English living in the evocative and seemingly threatening shadow of Dungeness nuclear power station ...
This is the first nuclear power station that I've gotten up close to, and the setting certainly helped amp up the atmosphere. Firstly, the desolate shingle gives the area the air of a science fiction world, helped when we visited by its framing with a grey sky and sea. Secondly, the area is populated either by small cottages surrounded by junk, or simply by large piles of seeming marine debris, including beached boats and battered shipping containers. These pile on the futurism by giving Dungeness an end-of-the-world feel that wouldn't be out of place in Half-Life 2.
Surprisingly, but at the same time not surprisingly, the area is host to a small community of artists, of which Jarman was once part (he may even have been in the vanguard, but I suspect not). While investigating the displayed works of one painter (Paddy Hamilton, we later discovered), we were invited into his studio and got the low-down on his work and inspiration. One of his series of paintings was of the vehicles that visited Dungeness. It transpired that these belong to a population of transients attracted to the cheap living and isolation of the headland. The paintings themselves were interesting, but the stories behind each gave them an unexpected depth.
All that said, the power station is a pretty anodyne feature. While we were wandering around there was essentially no discernible activity or noise from the station. Quite different from the industrial landscapes around my work, which are always busy or noisy or both. In fact, what activity there was stemmed from the fair number of curious visitors who'd travelled to the tip of the headland to see the reactor buildings. Perhaps because they didn't glow, but just invisibly and silently produced power, people tended not to stay very long, and neither did we. A flurry of photographs, and we headed back inland to Burwash.
Full set of photographs available here.
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Day 3, Brightling and Bexhill
Two main targets today: a walk based around the neighbouring village Brightling, and a trip to see the De La Warr Pavilion in the seaside town of Bexhill-on-Sea.
We picked the Brightling walk from one of our books because it took in a number of follies built by the local 18th century eccentric John ("Mad Jack") Fuller. As his nickname implies, Fuller was regarded by some as a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but he was something of a rebellious MP and a strong patron of the arts and sciences, of which he supported, among others, J.M.W. Turner and Michael Faraday.
Anyway, our hike began at Brightling church, in the graveyard of which is a Fuller's final resting place, a large pyramid mausoleum ...
The walk went on to take in two further follies belonging to Fuller, a temple folly that now forms the centrepiece of a sheep pasture, and a tower folly that can still be scaled for views of Brightling and its surrounds ...
Again, the weather was very much on our side, and the walk took us over fields and through woods, passing goat farms and even crossing (twice) a rumbling, covered conveyor belt snaking its way through Brightling's rolling landscape ...
We could hear this gently grumbling through the forest long before we could see it. Apparently, it serves a neighbourhood gypsum mine. It certainly provided a more industrial feature of interest to counterpoint the more classical follies of Fuller.
Eventually (9.9 km; 6.2 mi), the work circled back on itself and brought us back to Brightling's church and Fuller's pyramid. Although the graveyard was providing dining for some local sheep (which now appears a common management strategy in East Sussex), the total absence of a bench (I know, I know) forced us to look a bit further afield for a lunch spot.
Fortunately, our route to Bexhill-on-Sea took us through a number of small villages and we eventually found the lovely St. Lawrence Church on a hill in Catsfield ...
It wasn't the first church that we stopped at though - but it was the first one that hadn't been deconsecrated and turned into someone's home. C had got as far as sitting down and getting the sandwiches out before we spotted that our first church's "graveyard" was lacking in headstones but did have a washing line ... oops.
After lunch we headed down to the seafront at Bexhill-on-Sea, and visited (probably) the town's most famous attraction: the beautifully Art Deco De La Warr Pavilion ...
C had been wanting to visit this for years but we'd never quite made it far enough east (the A27 being pants). Although I like Art Deco, I've often found that famous buildings I've gone out of my way to find are somewhat disappointing when finally encountered in the flesh, so I wasn't in a huge rush to see the Pavilion. But I must admit that I was pretty impressed in the end. As well as being uber-stylish - with a cylindrical glass front that houses a spiral staircase and some dangling modernist sculpture - its recent refit has given it a real polish. We actually caught it inbetween exhibitions, but just as well really - the building was cool enough to justify wandering around it without trying to take in any art on top.
Unfortunately, Bexhill-on-Sea doesn't have a whole lot else to see (or, rather, nothing that we could see), so we headed for home after finishing our photoshoot of the Pavilion. On the way back we hit another church, Mountfield. Among other details, this had a great Millennium Window with a lovely modern detail ...
Full set of photographs available here.
We picked the Brightling walk from one of our books because it took in a number of follies built by the local 18th century eccentric John ("Mad Jack") Fuller. As his nickname implies, Fuller was regarded by some as a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but he was something of a rebellious MP and a strong patron of the arts and sciences, of which he supported, among others, J.M.W. Turner and Michael Faraday.
Anyway, our hike began at Brightling church, in the graveyard of which is a Fuller's final resting place, a large pyramid mausoleum ...
The walk went on to take in two further follies belonging to Fuller, a temple folly that now forms the centrepiece of a sheep pasture, and a tower folly that can still be scaled for views of Brightling and its surrounds ...
Again, the weather was very much on our side, and the walk took us over fields and through woods, passing goat farms and even crossing (twice) a rumbling, covered conveyor belt snaking its way through Brightling's rolling landscape ...
We could hear this gently grumbling through the forest long before we could see it. Apparently, it serves a neighbourhood gypsum mine. It certainly provided a more industrial feature of interest to counterpoint the more classical follies of Fuller.
Eventually (9.9 km; 6.2 mi), the work circled back on itself and brought us back to Brightling's church and Fuller's pyramid. Although the graveyard was providing dining for some local sheep (which now appears a common management strategy in East Sussex), the total absence of a bench (I know, I know) forced us to look a bit further afield for a lunch spot.
Fortunately, our route to Bexhill-on-Sea took us through a number of small villages and we eventually found the lovely St. Lawrence Church on a hill in Catsfield ...
It wasn't the first church that we stopped at though - but it was the first one that hadn't been deconsecrated and turned into someone's home. C had got as far as sitting down and getting the sandwiches out before we spotted that our first church's "graveyard" was lacking in headstones but did have a washing line ... oops.
After lunch we headed down to the seafront at Bexhill-on-Sea, and visited (probably) the town's most famous attraction: the beautifully Art Deco De La Warr Pavilion ...
C had been wanting to visit this for years but we'd never quite made it far enough east (the A27 being pants). Although I like Art Deco, I've often found that famous buildings I've gone out of my way to find are somewhat disappointing when finally encountered in the flesh, so I wasn't in a huge rush to see the Pavilion. But I must admit that I was pretty impressed in the end. As well as being uber-stylish - with a cylindrical glass front that houses a spiral staircase and some dangling modernist sculpture - its recent refit has given it a real polish. We actually caught it inbetween exhibitions, but just as well really - the building was cool enough to justify wandering around it without trying to take in any art on top.
Unfortunately, Bexhill-on-Sea doesn't have a whole lot else to see (or, rather, nothing that we could see), so we headed for home after finishing our photoshoot of the Pavilion. On the way back we hit another church, Mountfield. Among other details, this had a great Millennium Window with a lovely modern detail ...
Full set of photographs available here.
Monday, 28 September 2009
Day 2, Battle and Bodiam
East Sussex is probably best known in the Britain for its connection with the Battle of Hastings in 1066. This year is probably the most significant, well, memorable, date in British history ... for reasons that (me being from Scotland) are largely mysterious. Today's hike was centred on the town that now exists adjacent to the battle site, the appropriately-named Battle, and took us to Battle Abbey, a memorial to the battle built by the winning side. I'm still not entirely sure why this particular battle is such a tectonic shift in British history (hadn't we been conquered by the Romans previously? aren't we currently "ruled" by an alien royalty?), but I can at least say that I've walked all around the hillside on which the battle took place.
We started bang in the centre of Battle but got out of the town in fairly short order, heading northeast. This time the GPS unit had remembered out track so, with a few minor deviations, we stayed close to the plan. This was helped by rather obvious path markers like this one ...
After a short deviation immediately after this railway tunnel, essentially we walked the wrong way around a sewage farm, the walk was pretty uneventful. A long stretch of it was through the bottom end of some impressively large gardens attached to equally impressively large houses, much, I'm sure, to the displeasure of their clearly moneyed owners. The outgoing leg, to a small village called Sedlescombe, took us mostly through fields, while the return leg was a largely forested affair. Quite a long walk (16.6 km; 10.3 mi), but cloudy weather kept it comfortable.
Eventually, we circled back to Battle ...
The town is pretty much dominated by the abbey built to commemorate the battle, and though we'd already walked quite far, we figured that we couldn't possibly visit the town without doing the history.
It turned out to be a lot more interesting than I'd originally feared. After a short film setting the scene, we took a walk around the battle site guided by a surprisingly entertaining audioguide.
Usually I'm extremely skeptical of these devices because they turn art gallery visitors into inconsiderate view blockers, but here there was no risk of that, and the commentary was well-written and actually quite amusing in places. For instance, after introducing an impressive, if tumbledown, portion of the abbey, the speaker delighted in undercutting our perceptions by revealing it as the toilet block.
And though even the geography of the site has changed somewhat since the battle, keying the commentary to particular locations still gave the listener an idea of where key events took place. The key event, of course, was the felling of King Harold, ostensibly by an arrow to the eye, an event we couldn't resist replicating on the very site where Harold (allegedly) fell ...
After leaving Battle we headed home by way of a couple of stops. We caught a really nice church in Salehurst with what we thought was a novel solution to graveyard lawn maintenance ...
Our last stop was nearby Bodiam Castle, something of a total castle stereotype. Not content with classic turrets and slit-like windows for shooting arrows out of, it's also surrounded by a (duck-infested) moat crossed by a drawbridge. Still, it made for a photogenic end to our day out.
Full set of photographs available here.
We started bang in the centre of Battle but got out of the town in fairly short order, heading northeast. This time the GPS unit had remembered out track so, with a few minor deviations, we stayed close to the plan. This was helped by rather obvious path markers like this one ...
After a short deviation immediately after this railway tunnel, essentially we walked the wrong way around a sewage farm, the walk was pretty uneventful. A long stretch of it was through the bottom end of some impressively large gardens attached to equally impressively large houses, much, I'm sure, to the displeasure of their clearly moneyed owners. The outgoing leg, to a small village called Sedlescombe, took us mostly through fields, while the return leg was a largely forested affair. Quite a long walk (16.6 km; 10.3 mi), but cloudy weather kept it comfortable.
Eventually, we circled back to Battle ...
The town is pretty much dominated by the abbey built to commemorate the battle, and though we'd already walked quite far, we figured that we couldn't possibly visit the town without doing the history.
It turned out to be a lot more interesting than I'd originally feared. After a short film setting the scene, we took a walk around the battle site guided by a surprisingly entertaining audioguide.
Usually I'm extremely skeptical of these devices because they turn art gallery visitors into inconsiderate view blockers, but here there was no risk of that, and the commentary was well-written and actually quite amusing in places. For instance, after introducing an impressive, if tumbledown, portion of the abbey, the speaker delighted in undercutting our perceptions by revealing it as the toilet block.
And though even the geography of the site has changed somewhat since the battle, keying the commentary to particular locations still gave the listener an idea of where key events took place. The key event, of course, was the felling of King Harold, ostensibly by an arrow to the eye, an event we couldn't resist replicating on the very site where Harold (allegedly) fell ...
After leaving Battle we headed home by way of a couple of stops. We caught a really nice church in Salehurst with what we thought was a novel solution to graveyard lawn maintenance ...
Our last stop was nearby Bodiam Castle, something of a total castle stereotype. Not content with classic turrets and slit-like windows for shooting arrows out of, it's also surrounded by a (duck-infested) moat crossed by a drawbridge. Still, it made for a photogenic end to our day out.
Full set of photographs available here.
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Day 1, Burwash botch
Today's jaunt (10.7 km; 6.6 miles) took us on a quasi-circular walk that actually began at our holiday home's front door ... at least, that was the plan.
After heading out southeast from Burwash, the walk's first point of interest was Bateman's, home of the British writer Rudyard Kipling for a good part of the early 20th century ...
So far, so good. Unfortunately, things went a bit awry after this point. Although I'd programmed the walk's route into the GPS, a memory problem meant that it had vanished by the time we started out. This shouldn't have been a problem given that we had a walk description and a map of the route. However, shortly after Bateman's a mistake interpreting said description set us on the wrong path. Unfortunately, though we were very much on the wrong path (as shown here), we were still able to stretch our book's instructions to match our surroundings. This seems to be something that we excel at, and our contortions to (mis)match words with what we see around us can be pretty impressive.
After about 15 minutes, we finally clocked our mistake, by which point we were the best part of a mile from its genesis. Reasoning that we could use our map to correct for mistake number one, we dutifully trudged onwards and into making mistake number two. Actually, we did get ourselves briefly onto the right path, but somehow managed to overshoot it. After winding up in an unexpected field, we despaired and thought about tracing our steps, but gave the walk one final chance to come good (it was a close thing). This time our luck was in, and after clambering over some barbed wire fencing, we got ourselves back on track.
In the end, the walk was actually a rather nice fields and forests affair, and with the weather so good it was easy to be forgiving of our mistakes. Aside from Bateman's, which a final late mistake saw us accidentally gatecrashing without paying, it was really just a nice jaunt in the English countryside. It did bag us our first oast house though ...
After recovering from our unexpectedly extended walk, we had a look around Burwash itself. It's more-or-less a one street town, with a just few short lanes padding it out. As is pretty much de rigueur for English villages, it had a great church in it, so there was much photographing of stained glass windows ...
After the previous evening's vegetarian-stretching dinner on the town, we opted to try out the barn's self-catering facilities. We also raided its video library for the evening's entertainment. Unfortunately, we'd seen almost everything worth watching, so against our better judgement plumped for an unknown Russell Crowe vehicle dealing with an ice hockey team from the polar wastes of Mystery Alaska. But, much to our surprise, it was actually perfectly acceptable entertainment. Totally generic, but very capably done. And served well by a good heart and some choice profanity.
Full set of photographs available here.
After heading out southeast from Burwash, the walk's first point of interest was Bateman's, home of the British writer Rudyard Kipling for a good part of the early 20th century ...
So far, so good. Unfortunately, things went a bit awry after this point. Although I'd programmed the walk's route into the GPS, a memory problem meant that it had vanished by the time we started out. This shouldn't have been a problem given that we had a walk description and a map of the route. However, shortly after Bateman's a mistake interpreting said description set us on the wrong path. Unfortunately, though we were very much on the wrong path (as shown here), we were still able to stretch our book's instructions to match our surroundings. This seems to be something that we excel at, and our contortions to (mis)match words with what we see around us can be pretty impressive.
After about 15 minutes, we finally clocked our mistake, by which point we were the best part of a mile from its genesis. Reasoning that we could use our map to correct for mistake number one, we dutifully trudged onwards and into making mistake number two. Actually, we did get ourselves briefly onto the right path, but somehow managed to overshoot it. After winding up in an unexpected field, we despaired and thought about tracing our steps, but gave the walk one final chance to come good (it was a close thing). This time our luck was in, and after clambering over some barbed wire fencing, we got ourselves back on track.
In the end, the walk was actually a rather nice fields and forests affair, and with the weather so good it was easy to be forgiving of our mistakes. Aside from Bateman's, which a final late mistake saw us accidentally gatecrashing without paying, it was really just a nice jaunt in the English countryside. It did bag us our first oast house though ...
After recovering from our unexpectedly extended walk, we had a look around Burwash itself. It's more-or-less a one street town, with a just few short lanes padding it out. As is pretty much de rigueur for English villages, it had a great church in it, so there was much photographing of stained glass windows ...
After the previous evening's vegetarian-stretching dinner on the town, we opted to try out the barn's self-catering facilities. We also raided its video library for the evening's entertainment. Unfortunately, we'd seen almost everything worth watching, so against our better judgement plumped for an unknown Russell Crowe vehicle dealing with an ice hockey team from the polar wastes of Mystery Alaska. But, much to our surprise, it was actually perfectly acceptable entertainment. Totally generic, but very capably done. And served well by a good heart and some choice profanity.
Full set of photographs available here.
Burwash Barn
As of late yesterday, we're on holiday in Burwash, East Sussex, another of our 2009 staycations. Previously we've done Scotland and Wales, but this is the English leg of our UK travels this year.
Anyway, so far so good. The place we're staying, a converted barn, is fantastic. As well as being really attractive, the owners have kitted it out with virtually everything you'd need. To use a cliche, it's practically a home from home. We've even got wi-fi, and we arrived to find a cake waiting for us.
As we arrived relatively late in the day, we didn't have much time last night for anything other than a nice chat with the owner and a trip to the nearly adjacent pub, the Rose And Crown, for dinner. Which, in passing, was really quite good, despite the traditional lack of vegetarian options (well, I say that having had the "trio of sausages" dish). Getting back to the barn, I noticed the disconcertingly low light-pollution, so tried to take a star trails photograph, with mixed results ...
The air was rather damp last night, so as time passed, the lens got more and more condensation, with the result that only one really bright star was visible throughout the whole exposure period. Still the gradually fading trails work quite well.
Up early this morning to try for a local hike. Unsurprisingly given last night's condensation, dawn was nice and misty, especially in the valley below us. So out came the camera again. Here are our neighbours at the bottom of the garden, complete with a view over the sea of fog ...
Anyway, so far so good. The place we're staying, a converted barn, is fantastic. As well as being really attractive, the owners have kitted it out with virtually everything you'd need. To use a cliche, it's practically a home from home. We've even got wi-fi, and we arrived to find a cake waiting for us.
As we arrived relatively late in the day, we didn't have much time last night for anything other than a nice chat with the owner and a trip to the nearly adjacent pub, the Rose And Crown, for dinner. Which, in passing, was really quite good, despite the traditional lack of vegetarian options (well, I say that having had the "trio of sausages" dish). Getting back to the barn, I noticed the disconcertingly low light-pollution, so tried to take a star trails photograph, with mixed results ...
The air was rather damp last night, so as time passed, the lens got more and more condensation, with the result that only one really bright star was visible throughout the whole exposure period. Still the gradually fading trails work quite well.
Up early this morning to try for a local hike. Unsurprisingly given last night's condensation, dawn was nice and misty, especially in the valley below us. So out came the camera again. Here are our neighbours at the bottom of the garden, complete with a view over the sea of fog ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
