Day thirteen – Cocking Hill car park to Harting Down car park

DayDay thirteen – Cocking Hill car park to Harting Down car park 

“Aisle of white” 

It was raining today and rather comically, one of the first images I came across was some white geese clustered around a water trough, as though there wasn't enough water all around us already.

After a short walk on the flat, I started up one of those hills where the slope just never seems to come to an end.   Each time I felt I was at the top of the hill it went on farther still. 

In this wet weather the majority of the sheep had taken the sensible decision to sit down and keep their patch of ground dry.  That is until a few of them got up, unnerved by my presence.  

At the top of the interminable hill was a chalk sculpture.   To be honest, the only identifying feature that it was a sculpture was, well, nothing!  Except for perhaps that it would be unusual for a huge lump of chalk to end up here.  No, I knew it was a sculpture from reading prior to my walk.     

The walk after this was absolutely lovely.   Both sides of the path were bursting with daisies and even in the rain it looked fantastic.  It looked like a aisle dressed ready for the bride.  However,  admiring it’s beauty, I did have a death-by-bike mkII moment when a cyclist coming up from behind made me jump out my skin.   It was difficult in noisy wet-weather gear to hear things quite the same.     

I find the markers a little ambiguous on this section of the walk and almost went wrong four times, but thank goodness, did not. 

Turning right, with relief I’d realised the path didn't go straight on, I immediately came across a WW2 memorial tucked in amongst the trees.  Surprisingly it is in tribute to a German pilot who lost his life when he was shot down on the very first day of the Battle of Britain.  I wonder why this pilot over all the others got commemorated and feel there must be a story behind it.  At the time I was there a wreath had been laid by the Portsmouth Naval Base Prosperity Trust and one of the poppies hanging in the vegetation was inscribed with the year ‘2020’, so it is obviously still frequently visited and remembered.  I said a few prayers for the dead and moved on.  

I came across another flush of poppies in the lowlands, but this time real.  They were up high on a chalk bank and looked lovely presented as such against the white, but it made me reflect on how many had fallen in the wars. 

The hills were challenging today and on the last one a waft of mist or smoke blew across me.  Reminiscent of stars in their eyes, I stepped through to where I would start anew tomorrow the next part of the walk – Harting Down car park, which according to an ex- forces guy I talked to, was where they dropped him off (or in his words ‘dumped him’!), when he was serving.