Up on the Downs

One hundred miles. A nice, perfectly round figure and I’d taken it for granted. One hundred miles in seven days--why not? Andrew and I commonly do long walks of 8-11 miles and daily circuits of 4 miles through the subdivision. I felt confident and calm about spending a week on the South Downs Way, walking from Eastbourne to Winchester across the southern part of Great Britain. People did it all the time so why not us?

We accumulated 50 miles of exploring around London during the week leading up to the trek. Jet lag was behind me and I felt strong and fairly fit; but the closer I got to the starting line the more nervous I became.

We planned to stay at inns and bed and breakfasts along the way, carrying basic necessities in medium sized back packs, and while we weren’t bringing camping gear, I knew well enough that carrying 20-30 pounds on your back makes a difference. This was not going to be like our easy evening walks or other site seeing days. This was pure adventure.

I reasoned that I’d once done a 16-mile hike here in Alaska, but we’d have one 18-mile day between Amberley and South Harting and a couple 16-mile days beyond that. Surely that wasn’t too much more? I’d been so confident while planning things but now I began worrying about how it would be. Could I do it?

The September weather in London had been perfect, really perfect. And not just perfect by London standards, perfect by any standards. Sunny and beautiful, it promised to be great all along the trail. Friday morning we loaded up the bags, checked out of our hotel in Eastbourne, and took the first step out the door.

Cue the rain.

I resisted putting on my rain gear until it became windy and strong enough that the umbrella just wasn’t doing it so we stopped in a doorway and put on rain coats and pants before shouldering the packs once again and I thought to myself, “Take two.”

At the edge of Eastbourne a sign read: “South Downs Way: 100 Miles” and we stopped to contemplate it from underneath our umbrellas. With a deep sense of commitment we stepped off the pavement and onto the packed earth path leading straight up a tall, grassy hill toward Beachy Head. 

The wind was even stronger up there. The rain wasn’t fierce but persistent and under my rain gear I began to sweat as my heart worked harder and the cooling of the wind on my neck felt good. The trail crossed the hilltop and soon we were walking along chalk cliffs where access to the edge was roped off with signs posted reading “Danger: Cliff erosion dangerous. Stay far back!”

We passed a lighthouse and after a couple of hours came to Birling Gap, the area in between the hills along the cliffs where there’s beach access and a visitor’s center. We stopped, tired and sweaty, and I took off my shoes and socks to cool my feet. I felt pretty good actually, the rain had stopped and taking off the pack felt wonderful. We’d come so far! Restroom breaks, a light snack, a stroll along the beach, and I congratulated myself on my endurance as we loaded up the packs again. 

I’d thought we were far along the first day’s trail where the sea cliffs known as The Seven Sisters looked toward France. But soon it became obvious that we were just beginning that section and were back to sweating as we hiked up a rise only to plunge down to the trough and back up again the next cresting hill. I’d studied maps of the area and had a general sense of the topography but it hadn’t prepared me for how strenuous it was to carry the weight, struggling to make it towards the crest, then to feel entirely different muscles complain as I carefully made my way downhill, going so steeply that my toes were snug against the ends of my boots. I worried about slipping and began to traverse as I descended in order not to stumble and fall.

Three, four, five . . . I hadn’t been  counting the hills because I’d thought we were half way along. They were called The Seven Sisters. Surely we had to be close to seven by now? But on and on it went, up and down, up and down, until the sense of betrayal grew, soon joined by anger. Who had named these things? There had to be more like seventeen instead of seven! Seven Sisters! Not a chance. I wanted to complain and ask Andrew, “Are we almost there yet??” but knew he didn’t know much more than I did and was feeling it too. Maybe not as much because he’s in better shape, but he was tired too.

All things come to an end, including those dumb sisters, and when we could finally see the Cuckmere River stretched out below and I knew we were going down for the last time I wanted to do a cheer/cry. We sat down for a solid lunch on the hillside, feeling pretty proud of ourselves.

Well now that’s over, it’s just a straight shot along the river here north into Alfriston. It’s a few more miles and the hard part is behind us.

Which was true . . . partly. The Sisters were over, but there were still hills ahead. And now that we were tired, the hills felt harder than they should have. My emotional state began to dictate my physical state and every pain was amplified until I began hearing my inner voice came out loud and clear. I don’t think I can do this! I’m wiped out! How much longer??

I was being dragged by my hair by those emotions, leaving a bloody dust trail behind me.

We marched up and down, through Exceat, Lillington, and into Alfriston, taking a wrong turn and backtracking to get over the river. At last we limped into the lobby of The Deans Place, dropping our bags at the check-in desk.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Just let me die.

There was another couple checking in ahead of us, also with backpacks, and as we hadn’t seen them along the trail we correctly assumed they’d come from the opposite direction. Most people walk the South Downs Way west to east, claiming that the winds are better that direction and that it's more dramatic and satisfying to end at the Seven Sisters. For logistical reasons we’d decided to do the opposite and now wondered if that had been a mistake.

“So what is the rest of the trail like?” Andrew asked. “Is it like this?” Which was kind of a silly question, as they hadn’t a clue what we’d just been through so how could they tell us if tomorrow would be like today?

The man smiled and said, “It’s up and down the whole way. The middle part gets pretty flinty. It’s not easy but it’s been great. We’ve been going all week and tomorrow is our last leg, our feet are pretty tired.”

I looked them over, trying to size up their level of fitness and then thinking about how destroyed I felt at that moment. A panic rose up.

That’s it. I can’t do another week of this. What am I going to do?

We checked in and made our way--up the stairs of course, that’s how the gods punish you--to our room. I went into the bath to discover the enormous, extra-long bathtub and gave a shriek of happiness.

After a soak, I laid on the bed swathed in a luxurious terry robe and not moving at all except to breathe. After Andrew took his turn in the tub I considered that I might survive the evening and we eventually made our way down to dinner where we ate enormous amounts of food.

That became the pattern: We’d check out about 9am, find a place selling goods for the day’s lunch, then hike and hike and hike until we dropped our bags at the next room, exhausted, then we’d resurrect with a soak in the tub followed by an enormous dinner. Turns out “The Downs” are horribly mislabeled and aren’t “downs” at all, so much as they are “ups.” Or at the very least, they’re half “ups” and half “downs” because the Downs are ripples of hills, running east to west across the island, and every day we’d leave town and immediately head straight up, climbing to get up on top of the Downs, then walk along the ridge, the country falling away wide and flat to the north on our right hand and sloping downward to the sea on our southern side, until we came to a valley, then we’d descend, only to ascend the ridge, coming down each evening to stay in towns nestled in valleys, each with a matching river: Alfriston on the Cuckmere, Lewes on the Ouse, Steyning on the River Arden, Amberley on the Arun, South Harting with its canals, Exton on Meon, and eventually Winchester on the Itchen River. Towns built from flint and cemented into walls, houses, castles, and churches and as old as any in England. Corhampton Church, for example, was there before William the Conqueror, and Lewes Castle came not long after.

Outside the villages, up high on the Downs, it was an agricultural Eden, with pastures full of sheep, pigs, horses, or cows and linked by wooden trestle gates. The first rule of the Downs is to close the gate behind you. This might be a traditional, pivoting gate controlled by a metal pole sticking up from the latch so that it can be grasped and worked from horseback, or it might be a kissing gate, a contraption rather like a revolving door but with only 120 degrees of rotation. The idea is that you work your way through the arc and around the pivot of the gate but an animal wouldn’t be able to follow through the narrowness of the fit. In reality, a person carrying a 20-pound backpack isn’t likely to squeeze around the rotating gate either and has to figure out a way to get through when merely sucking in one’s gut isn’t enough.

The grasses were kept short by the grazing animals, and often filled with landmines of poop that made it hard to advance without getting dirty. Wildflowers sprang up in waves of color: purple thistles, blue bachelor buttons, yellow buttercups, red poppies, white queen anne’s lace, and once we even came upon a field of cultivated sunflowers that stretched to the horizon. 

Sometimes the trail led through forests of ancient moss-covered trees, sometimes we passed dew ponds: little twenty-foot dimples of packed clay designed to hold rainwater for livestock. If there was a grassy mound anywhere on the landscape it was likely an ancient burial mound or archeological site that had reverted to the earth. Chanctonbury Ring was one of these: An overgrown Iron-age fort that in the 19th century Age of Romance had been planted with a double ring of elm trees around what had once been its ramparts. We sat on a fallen log inside the ring and ate our morning snack there in the center. The mist obscured sounds and sights beyond the trees, making it eerie and beautiful. 

The official South Downs Way is joined here and there by public bridleways, where horses can share the path with walkers–though overall we saw more mountain bikers than horses, and often racing toward one downhill at full speed and seemingly out of control. It’s as if they’d forgotten what it feels like to have a much larger vehicle bearing down before passing with only inches to spare and with enough force to nearly knock you off your feet.

But mostly we had the paths to ourselves and leaving Steyning on a misty morning along the river I noticed big, fat, black slugs and greenish-gray snails with tiger-patterned shells on their backs. At first they were a novelty and a wonder, then they became a nuisance because you couldn’t take the trail at full pace without stepping on them. There’s nothing like a solid crunch and slippery slide under your foot to make you wince.

Our favorite animal was a pheasant. It all started when, on a bored afternoon when the conversation had drifted off, another pheasant flew out suddenly from the brush, startling us with the loud flap and flutter of its wings. It had happened a half a dozen times before but this time Andrew lifted his arm and pointed his finger like a gun at the bird, made a shooting sound and yelled, “Mine!”

“What was that about?” I asked.

“I got it. It’s mine,” he said, as if this were normal behavior.

“So that’s how it’s gonna be?”

He smiled in that bring it on kind of way.

The problem was that he just wasn’t that quick on the draw. Every time we’d come upon a pheasant (and often they’d dart out onto the trail and trot 100 feet ahead of us, keeping just out of our way) I’d take aim and shoot long before he would even register it was there. Soon the score was Andrew: one sad little initial pheasant,  Michelle: EIGHT.

Later on the next afternoon the trail was flanked on either side by tall, shading shrubs and at one point along the hillside the shrubs parted to reveal a large field to our left that opened out into the sunshine. Andrew paused for a minute to get a drink and took off his backpack, staring out into the field. 

He raised his hand, made his shooting sound and yelled, “MINE!”

Stepping out into the field, he did this again. And again. “MINE! . . . MINE! . . . MINE!”

He ran out into the sunshine, pointing his arm and yelling, a grown man making gun noises and dancing around with his arms in the air and shooting like Yosemite Sam. This was more entertaining than the actual game. 

After about ten or more shots he turned to me and said, “I got a whole field!”

“Yes sir, you did,” I said, impressed that he was bragging about what had just happened. “I wish I’d got that on film.”

Food was never a problem. We always had wonderful breakfasts wherever we stayed, brought lunch along with us, and enjoyed dinner at the pub each night. Sometimes lunch was peanut butter and jam sandwiches--we were delighted to find ingredients at the corner newsstand in Steyning--or salami, cheese, baguettes, and fruit if we could get it. 

One morning I bought a wheel of camembert at Wayfair in Lewes and when we came back that evening the smell of it had filled our room and at first we couldn’t figure out what on earth that horrible stink could be but I ended up wrapping the cheese and leaving it in the bathroom overnight to keep it downwind. Andrew never got past the smell but the stinkier the cheese, the better the taste and eating camembert, grapes, and prosciutto on a hillside outside of Pyecomb will remain as one of the best meals I’ve ever had.

There was the Abergavenny Arms, a pub in Rodmell where Virginia Woolf had her home before committing suicide (no reflection on the pub); the Brewers Arms in Lewes with its delicious cheese chips and homemade hamburger buns; Ramblers coffee, the pink food truck that served drinks and baked treats near Westmeston; or the ice cream truck at Ditchling Beacon where the cones were slightly stale but we were so happy to be at the top of the hill that we didn’t care. Our last day we had a picnic lunch at Cheesefoot Head, the natural amphitheater where Eisenhower addressed 100,000 American troops prior to D-Day. 

The first morning in Eastbourne we had lunch with two older couples (turns out, Eastbourne is a pensioners paradise), who wanted to hear all about Alaska. Part way through the meal one of the women commented, “I have to say, my dear, that you speak English wonderfully!” 

Why thank you! 

Later, we walked with Rowena Imogene Jane Hitchcock, as if you could find a more suitably British name than that, who was a pediatric cardiologist from Oxford, down on walking holiday and going from Eastbourne to Alfriston--it being not uncommon to walk the South Downs Way a piece at a time rather than consecutively. Tall and dignified with a long steady gait, she was pleasant and courteous and we spent just the proper amount of time for two strangers who were forced to acknowledge each other’s presence while in step together along the way. 

Our waiter at The Deans Place restaurant was from Naples and wanted to hear all about our adventures, though given the number of countries he’d lived in it seemed as if his life had plenty of adventure already. 

East of Winchester at The Millburys, we were sitting on the grass outside the pub to take a break when a man in his 70s walked by going the opposite direction from us, trekking pole in hand. He noticed us, stopped, and seemed inclined to talk. After a cautious opening of conversation, we were soon sharing travel stories, talking about the trail (which he’d walked several times), and answered questions about life in Alaska and I thought how pleasant it would be to have this man as a regular friend back home.

Vicky ran Trevor House, the bed and breakfast we stayed at in Lewes--a beautiful town boasting its very own battle, castle, and currency (the Lewes pound note). She was a tanned, bleached, and leathery grandmother, quite a thin British version of Goldie Hawn. She wanted payment in cash, due on arrival, dropped names, and bemoaned the difficulties of maintaining a second house for wintering in the south of France as long as we cared to listen.

In the morning she asked us how we’d like our eggs.

“Scrambled,” we said, as Andrew was terrified of runny food and I was trying to be as accommodating as possible.

But that made her visibly uncomfortable. She didn’t know how to scramble eggs and asked several questions about the best way to accomplish the task, though we assured her we didn’t need scrambled eggs all that badly. Wondering how she’d managed to avoid scrambling eggs for this long in her hospitality career, I noticed ants here and there on the table and tried flicking them away without drawing her attention while she worked the stove.

The apricot jam and croissants (pronounced in the proper French way of course) were truly delicious, the location was terrific, and the bed was comfortable. She asked where we’d stayed earlier and when we said, “The Deans Place” she responded with an impressed, “Posh!” Which seemed an incongruous opinion for someone enjoying the south of France regularly.

“Why are you staying here then?” she asked, “Why a bed and breakfast?” 

Why not here? It was a lovely house and every wall had something interesting hanging on it. She’d called herself an academic and said she’d taught film school. The framed classic movie posters backed this up. Her daughter had been to fashion design school and had won some prestigious design competition, the results of which were featured in the hallway.

I shrugged and let the question go, wondering why I was being asked to justify my being there. 

She talked about the effort it was to care for her aging, rather demanding mother who occupied the corner room upstairs. She was lonely and angry that her husband David--he’d been a journalist--had died of cancer just as life was getting interesting and she didn’t seem that keen on running a bed and breakfast. Admittedly, I wondered how she’d survive it. Catering to guests isn’t easy. Probably worse than aging parents and with worse pay.

The last night we stayed with Sue at the Crossways B&B in Exton. A retired BP exec, she and her husband had escaped to the country and remodeled a farm house, complete with a mother-in-law apartment over the garage for her parents. I’d been in contact via email with Sue for nearly two years as I’d planned our trip, her little cottage apartment not being listed on any typical hosting site and our transaction was carried out completely via email and PayPal. 

From the lengthy emails I’d received so far, I knew she loved to talk and when we finally arrived she chattered away easily and comfortably. Her parents hadn’t yet moved down, loving their place in Cornwall too much to make the transition, so she’d thought why not? Let’s make it into a bed and breakfast! Which she’d done with care and style.

Sue was one of those rare people who could look at a situation and know exactly what was needed to make things most comfortable. She certainly couldn’t have been in it for the money, given the amount of time and labor and extras she’d put into the project, she was someone who loved people and loved to talk. What better thing then, than a place to house people, to make them happy, and then talk with them?

The beautifully remodeled apartment was filled with every amenity imagination could provide. The small kitchen was stocked with local village sausage, fresh eggs, baguettes, croissants, fresh orange juice and milk, yogurt, granola, bacon, and a selection of jams. On the table was a domed platter with two beautiful, chocolate brownies–good brownies–not too doughy and not too cakey and big as the palm of your hand,and a jar of apricot oatmeal cookies spiced to perfection.

She’d made reservations for us at the local pub: the Shoe Inn, and recommended local attractions to enjoy. In the morning we opened the slanting roof lights to overlook her misty garden, decorated with a family of giraffes sculpted from recycled sheet metal and oil drums and in bright colors–one with a distinctive green BP logo on its rump. 

The hardest part was that we didn’t have another night to spend there 

When we arrived at the Amberley Black Horse the owner was there behind the bar to greet us and check us in. Cheerful and talkative, he shared how he and his wife had taken over the place that had once billeted troops during World War II.

“You see that window there?” he said, pointing to a pane behind me.

Scratched into one of the four sections of glass was a small bird--not unlike one of our pheasants in fact--with tiny initials beneath it.

“When the troops was here, some of them was Canadians, and one’v their officers--that’s him here’n that picture to the right--he was here too. 

“Well, the officer, you see’s he’s an artist, an’ a handsome bloke, and it weren’t too long a’fore he caught the eye of the town beauty. He up and proposed to ‘er and she said yes and you see that made the other soldiers irritated.

“So they’s says to him, ‘We don’t believe that this ‘ere ring you’ve got is real’--you know, tryin’ to say he’s a liar and didn’t ‘ave a real ring to give ‘er.

“Well, he just turns himself aroun’ and scratches that there little bird into the window just like that. Proves it was real doesn’t it? That sure as shut ‘em up!”

I looked at the tiny picture and thought about the ring and wondered if I was being taken in. I didn’t really care, it was a delightful story and the picture on the wall showed a handsome man good enough to win a girl’s heart. On the walls were framed charcoal and crayon drawings of soldiers relaxing or drinking, gestured images with hints of color and full of life. I liked his Canadian officer.

The smartest thing we did was to arrange transportation for our backpacks between Amberley and South Harting. It worked so well and we felt so wonderful about the decision that we did the same thing the next day for the trip from South Harting to Exton. So while I may have walked 100 miles, my luggage certainly did not. 

But regardless of whether you consider that to be cheating, it remains that we walked the entire South Downs Way, a distance of 100 miles. Probably more, when you consider the extra distance within the towns and for the occasional doubling back. The strange thing is, that first day was definitely the hardest. No other day was as difficult or as painful and I’ve wondered if it was truly because the path gets harder going west to east, or if I just got tougher. I like to think that I got tougher. 

We’ve thought back to that couple we met the first night and laughed to think that they didn’t realize what was ahead for their final day. I think that if I’d faced the Seven Sisters after walking nearly 100 miles, I might have accidentally walked off the edge. In fact, we’d had a perfect time of it. After that first day there was no rain and it was pleasantly overcast--so as not to be too hot in the full sun. 

The minute we were done the first thing we said was, “When do you want to do another one?”