Day fourteen – Harting Down car park to Queen Elizabeth Country Park
“If a tree falls on me in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound?”
The first thing I came across was a sign screwed to a tree warning:
DANGER
ANCIENT WOODLAND
EXTREME CAUTION IN HIGH WINDS
This, while the wind blew around me. At first I didn't read it properly and thought it meant I may be whipped off my feet, but instantly my eyes landed upon a pile of chipped up trees and I took note of the mention of ancient woodland. No, they meant I may be crushed by a tree, a less appealing option, I thought, but probably more unlikely. This evaluation of probability though was cast a little in doubt by the amount of trees already uprooted or sawn down. I was effectively in a tree graveyard, fortunately I don't think the wind was at its worst today. I noticed that some of the tree trunks had unusual ripple on them. Was this how strong the weather here got to cause such an effect?
Striding downhill, I looked at the winding road beside me cut into the hillside. It gave the feeling of being on a mountain side rather than the relativity placid South Downs.
With wind fresh in my memory, I came across a gate in the lowlands with logs along the bottom, presumably to stop anyone opening them. In my mind they looked like draught excluders on an opening that let more air through than the bottom ever would.
A little farther on and you will join a small country road. It was a little busier than I would have liked and so I had to keep waiting for cars to pass, but the beautiful red grape-coloured trees lining the sides made up for it.
Sadly on the next part of the walk I came across public notices informing that ash die back, a fungal infection that kills ash trees, is present in the area. It was again a risk to health-and-safety, due to the trees becoming brittle and unstable, combined with the decision to let the trees take their natural course rather than chop them down in case some turn out to be resistant to the infection. I’m sensing a theme to the plot of this chapter of my life story...
In front of a house along the way I found a little table, decked out with much of what a walker could want. There was water and biscuits for both human and dog, bowls and chips and a clipboard with paper informing of the price for a flapjack and messages of thanks back.
As I climbed the next hill I came across a statue of a sheep next to a bench. The little write-up next to it told of the Hampshire Downs sheep that graze the chalk grassland keeping it as we know it today. In Sussex we bred the Southdown sheep breed, so I was very much interested to find out the Hampshire section had their own breed too.
Next, I entered the Queen Elizabeth Country Park and this is where things felt just slightly daunting. The park is criss-crossed with paths winding through it and there isn't another sign for what seems like an eternity. You really have to hold your nerve and believe that you are on the right track, then you shouldn't go wrong. Repeat the mantra: “Do not enter the maze!”
Just before the car park I came across a few stick shelters made by children that seem to be in most woodlands nowadays and then at the cafe I discovered something a little less common: A dog wash. Not something that I believe existed anywhere when I had one of man's best friends by my side.
| A little bit about Epidermylosis Bullosa (EB): Losing too much blood from the wounds results in anaemia, which in turn slows down healing. |