north downs way

i had my first epic hike of the season, only instead of hiking through fish creek park, i shlepped through 25 km of north downs way, and it was lovely.

erik and i took the train to guildford and after cutting through the town, and stopping briefly to see the castle, we made our way tothe north downs and dutifully trekked our way across to dorking over some incredibly beautiful surrey countryside.

guildford was extremely cute, even though we zipped through quickly. for movie buffs, guildford was where some of the town shots were filmed for The Holiday - where cameron diaz swaps houses with kate winslet. great movie. but i digress. we quickly made our way to the guildford castle. it is very small but still beautiful none the less. after a quick visit and a few photo ops, we made our way up the hill (and past incredibly beautiful homes) to get to the north downs. there are some of the rich and famous that live out there, as well as a plethora of many footballers (namely blues), but we begain our 25km journey all fresh and happy. ha ha...no, bitchy gio only came out once.


guildford castle

a couple hours in we stopped at the silent pool near Albury and made our way to the Drummond Arms for a pint and some pub food. but this wasn't any average pub...we ate crab st. jacques and stuffed mushrooms with custard and berry crumble and treacle sponge and if we wanted, we could have had chateau neuf du pape.


the silent pool

however, the 2km detour to see the pool took us down a steep climb which means it tooks us a step climb up to get back on track and out came bitchy gio. i begged and pleaded for a break but noooooooooooo, i didn't get one.

when we hit the white downs we started to see many bunnies and a lot of deserted army bunkers, just sitting there...waiting for the germans to come and get us.

anyhoo, aside from pretty shoddy signage on what way to go, we finally got to dorking at about 8:30 and i was exhausted. i got to bed, took a hot bath and proceeded to pass out for a solid's night rest. it was a great walk. erik's already planning the second leg of the journey and note to self...conveniently lose his email invite if its a walk over over 15K. :)

please tell me you're not reading this jeli :)