River Wey Navigation - 04 February 2007

Distance. There's no escaping it on a long distance walk, so we decided to up our mileage for today's stroll. Another home-made route, we started at Ripley and headed to Guildford on the River Wey Navigation - planning to return via the North Downs Way to clock up 20 miles.

A long walk for a winter's day, we made an early start to make sure we'd be getting home in daylight. Very cold and crisp, the route down to Guildford was cloaked in mist, so the views along the Wey Navigation lacked their usual colour.



We lunched in the park at Shalford, replenishing blood sugar levels with tea and Mini-Eggs. Then on along the North Downs Way past St. Martha's Hill and Newland's Corner. By now the mist had cleared and the sun was out, but we only kept warm from our brisk pace.



The return leg to Ripley branched away from the North Downs and took us along country roads through East Clandon. The BlogWalkers were tired but our resident fell-runner had no aching legs or weary feet. We managed 20 miles in about seven hours (obviously, we failed to accurately note the time of start or end), which we were happy with.

Not without incident, the walk had seen one team member savaged by a vicious dog and left gasping for life; another required first-aid surgery on their trousers after an unprovoked attack by a tree root; and we discovered the magical site of Surrey Hills brewery - makers of the very excellent Shere Drop.

Other plans will keep us from weekend walking now until March. Then we're planning to walk the Fox Way (39 miles over two days) to get back into the swing of things. Before then, most of the team will be in the Lakes, recording their progress on BlogWalkers: The Wainwrights.