Lost on the Milky Way - South Downs Way Walk
Country: England
Place: The South Downs Way, Queen Elizabeth Country Park to Cocking
Visited in: July, 2006
The warm Hampshire air was filled with the tempting smell of juicy meat slowly cooking on barbecues as we walked through Queen Elizabeth Country Park in our continuing quest to conquer the South Downs Way on the last Sunday of July.
It was to be filled with the smell of a different kind of cooked and not so juicy meat by the time we had finished that day’s 11+ mile walk, but let’s not dwell on that for too long.
This third stage of walking the South Downs Way would take us from Queen Elizabeth Country Park to Cocking crossing the Hampshire and West Sussex county boundary along the way.
Oh the shame
Before I continue, I feel, I should mount a defence against any sniggering at what happened next. It suffices to say that Hampshire, unlike West Sussex, has done a poor job in sign-posting the South Downs Way walk. This may be because until 1989 the South Downs Way officially ended just after crossing the West Sussex-Hampshire boundary. Nevertheless with the South Downs Way being a National Trail, I think it should be possible to walk the trail without constantly having to consult books and maps. Anyway, shaking off the stuffiness, I’ll move on to the embarrassing bit.
We had only just come out of Queen Elizabeth Country Park before we took the wrong path!
When you are done sniggering …
We ended up taking a detour of a least 30 minutes, but eventually found our way back to the South Downs Way by climbing the Milky Way, a dirt track running through woodland. For any die-hard South Downs Way walkers thinking that we then haven’t walked the real South Downs Way, you can get of your pedantic high horse, because earlier this year we followed the South Downs Way from Cocking to Queen Elizabeth Country Park. So the few meters we missed this time around, we have done before only walking the other way. Having walked the route before does, however, make it even more embarrasing that we took the wrong path.
Sweet, sweet West Sussex
Soon after getting back on the right track we said goodbye to Hampshire and entered the fully sign-posted bliss of West Sussex along the Forty Acre Lane, a flint farm track.
We didn’t meet any other walkers until we reached Beacon Hill. Here, however, people were
picknicking, a few runners were struggling down the hill and we also battled a herd of sheep as we climbed the hill. We took the short route up and over Beacon Hill as oppose to walking around it, which we had done on the walk mentioned earlier. This turned out to be the most straining part of the walk, but we were soon rewarded with the view of golden corn fields.
The never-ending home stretch (literally)
Even though Beacon Hill was the most straining part, the last hour and a half of the walk turned out to be hardest for me. After walking through beautiful woodland the Way turned into a chalky track that ran as far as the eye could see. Apart from catching a glimpse of the grandstand at Goodwood racecourse in Chichester and walking past a massive chalk ball there wasn’t much to keep you entertained but to put one foot in front of the other.
Just before we reached our car, we did pass a painter who seemed to be enjoying this part of the South Downs Way far more than I did. But then I had just walked more than 11 miles.
Next stage
The next stage of our walk went from Cocking to Amberley, which you can read about here:
Related articles
You can read about all the stages of our South Downs Way walk in these articles:
Sweltering South Downs Way Walks
Crossing the Greenwich Meridian
Eastbourne never looked sweeter
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