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| Owner:
squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2882 |
26th April 2017 Hiking - Walking: Petworth Park Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods Max Speed: Distance Covered: Tuesday 25th April – travel + walk at Sayers Croft – sunny periods. Loaded the van with bikes, no windsurfers this time as wind from the North and turning cold. Good trip down to Sayers Croft doing the 129 miles in two and a half hours. The very pregnant Hannah at work but is finishing on Friday:) Rob has the day off so chat over a sandwich then have a lovely walk around the bluebell filled woods, amazing as ever. With their car in the garage Rob picks Hannah up from school and we get to see her really big bump for the first time:) She looks really well but is tired and they can’t wait for the baby to arrive. Mag has brought a large lasagne and rhubarb crumble down with us which are delicious. Then Mag gives them the present she has been working on for the last couple of months, a fantastic colourful baby blanket made of 110 little squares taking, at a guess, 200 hours to complete which is lovely and was very well received:) The box also contained a pair of knitted dungarees, grey with Red Squirrel motif on the front pocket with matching shoes. Also, a little baby grow we couldn’t resist and bought from France with ‘Camping Sauvage’ (wild camping) on the front. Plus, some items, Rob had as a baby including one knitted by Grandma Mabel:) Then another surprise a big bag of stuff knitted by our dear old friend Mary from Felixstowe which range from a few months to five! Then last of all an amazing item her son sourced from Canada a Blue Jays (Rob and Hannah’s favourite baseball team) fleece blanket, perfect for the baby to play on! Everyone was now tired so we left for the night to sleep in our camper parked in the carpark. Wednesday 26th April – Walk ***** Petworth Park – sunny periods. Rob and Hannah had an early hospital appointment in Guildford so we were up early for breakfast with them before they set off. Then our good-byes, the next time we see them hopefully the bump will be gone and we will be Grandparents – can’t wait:) We set off heading for the South Downs Path where we stayed last year stopping at Cranleigh for bread and milk. We then realised we had no UK map on board and didn’t know where we were going! Ending up in Godalming, a well healed old market town with young mums doing keep fit with babies in buggies in the park. We paid the 90 pence to park and soon found a W.H. Smith to buy a map. Plus, some sausage rolls from a local bakery which we ate in the carpark. We were keen to get our monies worth! Now knowing where we were going, we headed towards Bignor through the lovely Surrey countryside, full of bluebell woods and pasture. Property is so expensive down here - when we looked in Godalming you couldn’t get a semi for under £700,000! We passed an interesting Arboretum at Winkworth but it was closed and you would have had to pay so continued. Then we came to a huge walled park entered via a narrow gate over a cattle grid which turned out to be Petworth Park run by the National Trust. Apparently, it was designed in the 1750’s, Petworth’s 700-acre parkland remains one of ‘Capability’ Browns most famous landscapes being immortalised in JMW Turner’s paintings and is largely unchanged from the early 19th century, now being home to a magnificent herd of Fallow Deer, countless species of wild life and a fantastic array of ancient trees plus a huge country house featuring the servant’s quarters – this just shows we read the notice board really well! AS soon as we had parked we spotted a huge number of deer so we quickly paid the £3 car park fee, packed a picnic and set off on a circular walk as marked on the board. The parkland is truly beautiful looking even better as the sun started to break through. We followed the wide grass path near the boundary wall through vast numbers of deer. There must have been at least two hundred who hardly batted an eye as you walked close-by. They were mostly females and young with the odd stags with impressive antlers:) We came to the first of the lakes with Jackdaws nesting and geese with young, little yellow fluffy balls that swam off as we passed. It was then past the gardeners’ cottages up a hill past the more formal gardens filled with bluebells and brightly coloured shrubs and trees of every variety. Then the massive imposing country house came into view grandly standing with great views down to yet another lake. There was a gateway to the house and more formal gardens which you had to pay to visit, £15 for the house and gardens but free to National Trust members. We thought about looking into joining but then discovered it would be £5.40 a month at the least so think we will pass! We don’t visit National Trust properties that often! We walked in as there was no pay kiosk, to look at the back of the house. The large servants’ quarters beckoned you in so we cheekily passed through the integral shop and looked for the loo before finding ourselves in the amazing fully equipped kitchens from an earlier era – just stunning:) We then realised that all the other visitors had orange stickers on their coats indicating that they had paid and the members of staff had scanners to check so after taking some pics we snuck out much to Mags relief (she hates to think she is doing anything wrong!). We then did a circuit of the fantastic gardens with leaves of every colour, bluebells covering the floor and huge rhododendron’s in full bloom. You really had to pay to visit this too but no one bothered us so we continued, finding a great spot by a large columned rotunda garden feature. Rested and refreshed we headed back to the parkland walking past the front of the house taking pics of the impressive garden furniture before heading down to the lake with its dog statue, boathouse and tree filled islands. Sadly, some of the islands had had their trees cut down, must have been diseased:( We walked around the lake spotting more baby geese and back towards the van through yet more stunning rolling parkland with small wooded areas on the surrounding hills and boy was it a long way. There was a towered gateway in the wall in the distance but it was just too far with our six mile tired legs fast approaching! We found the deer again walking through the middle of them to reach the van after four hours out covering seven miles. A National Trust £3 well spent! It was then just a few miles up to the free National Trust car park on the top of the South downs with amazing views down to the coast. Knackered we just snacked, read and dozed with the wind getting up and showers. After Chicken curry for tea we carried on relaxing in the van watching deer in the fields with Red Kites above – Top day :) Photo Gallery Here |
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