My plan to post daily on our South Downs Way walk failed because…well, All The Things 🤦🏼‍♀️

First: By almost the end of Day Two I didn’t see how I was going to get to the end of Day Two, let alone any other days.

Second: We were staying in campsites with limited – if any –  access to electricity and we needed to charge phones, watches and Percy’s tracker.  We had bought solar power thingys to create out own power, but you need sun for that…

Third: It was far, far harder than I’d anticipated walking 20km+ a day with a 12kg rucksack.  By the time we pitched our tent each night and eaten our rehydrated dinner, I mostly wanted to sleep.

But….we (mostly) made it.

The second night we washed our t-shirts, pants and socks (wash one, wear one to keep the weight down) only to discover there was no chance of drying them before bed.

So we rigged the washing line up inside the two man and a dog tent and…both woke up with wet t-shirts on our faces.  It was a little like being suffocated by dead fish.

‘Luckily’ Mr R recalled that when in the forces his Dad had put damp washing in his sleeping bag to dry it.  So for the next few nights I slept with the dead fishes…

On the third night we had the unusual experience of sleeping at a site on top of the downs (most sites are in the valleys where villages are, so you climb down in the evening, up in the morning and stay on the top of the downs (with a few mountainous hills on the way) during the day.

This night was great though – no additional steep bits and a stunning view.  It did only have one portaloo which was pretty much full and the ‘shower’ was a hose in a roofless horse box, but I had a wet wipe wash and we agreed we’d just get up and out early the next morning and that would be fine.  And it would have been, had the storm not hit.  Could I remind you wee were on the top of a hill?  We spent pretty much the whole night with the tent being bashed so hard that the poles bent, wondering if the canvas was going to stand up to the winds.

We made it through, but we’d had pretty much no sleep and it was a 30km day.  And by this time there was a weather warning in place.

The wind was still howling and the rain was bucketing it down.  This was a bit of a lull while we had our morning coffee:

We agreed that the only option for our sanity and Percy’s welfare was to miss this day completely,  So we got the bus to our next stop.  The rain was still torrential when we arrived and we couldn’t pitch the soaking tent in it, so we stopped in the shed / summer house that housed the campsite vending machine and Percy and I slept…

We started again the next day in the rain but the weather improved gradually –  so much that by the last day we were actually hot.

So we did it, but not entirely.  We stopped at the South Downs shop on our bus ride day and saw some  South Downs 100 mile walk badges.  I said we couldn’t buy them because we wouldn’t really have done it, but a very lovely South Downs Ranger called Ethan overheard and asked what had happened.  He told us his patch was the leg we were missing and he’d walked it hundreds of times in his job and we could absolutely take a couple of his walks to complete ours 🙂 .  So I bought the badges but have not attached them to anything yet.

We will be going back to do that leg so we can wear our badges with pride.  But we will NOT be camping at that campsite this time. 😬

There are quite a few stories from the week you might like. I’ll be posting them soon – I just wanted to respond to a few ‘proof of life’ requests I’ve had after going quiet on here after Day 1 🤓

PS:  There is NOTHING better than the night sky in the middle of the South Downs.  So Many Stars.

PPS: It was mostly Type 1 and 2 Fun.  A bit of Type 3.  And I might have discovered a teeny bit of Type 4…