Wind, hail and rain

Trailwalker Training Walk 8 - 22/03/08 with Sasha, Anne and Lucy - 11 miles round Polesden Lacey, Effingham and the North Downs to the West of Ranmore. Av speed 2.6 mph

Damn it was cold. And wet. And windy. And muddy and slippery!

So the weather forecast wasn't good to start with but I was keen to get out and surprisingly so were the others. It all started so well, a gentle stroll from the car park down to the YHA hostel at Tanners Hatch. I suppose it was our own fault, but we missed the sharp left had turn needed at the bottom of the hill towards Polesden Farm as planned and ended up heading off towards Polesden Lacey itself! Not the best start to the day! It wasn't problem I figured, we'd just catch up with our route the other side of the estate.
The problem was, being a national trust property, the garden's boundaries were fairly solid and impregnable and for about 10 mins we must have looked like a right bunch of muppets, all togged up, in the light rain at this point, trying to find holes in the fence to crawl through. In the end we crossed over a road via a small footbridge, dodged the barbed wire at the base of the bridge and slid down the steep bank onto the road below. I think it was Sasha who nearly took out an unsuspecting cyclist who was slowly plodding his way up the steep road on his mountain bike and must have got the fright of his life to see a lycra-clad blonde sliding down the bank from under a bridge! You can see the bridge and the bank in the picture above!


Finally back on track we began to notice just how cold it was. Woolly hats and gloves were definitely in order. The cold was OK, but just as we crossed over High Barn road in Effingham we were hit full on by 90 degree hail, whipping in from the North! it only lasted 5 minutes but it certainly made up for time with ferocity and by the time we crossed over Beech Avenue and onto Effingham Golf Course it had stopped. For a while. Somewhat surprisingly as we crossed over the 12th fairway we were surprised to see a few hardy souls on the course. We looked at each other, no doubt each thinking the others were mad to be out with weather like this!!

Eventually we headed South and got back onto the Ranmore Common land. By now a couple of us were quite cold and it didn't take much persuasion for everyone to agree to cut a mile or so off the walk and head back towards the car park, which was still 4 miles or so away.

Once again the going along the North Downs was pretty soggy underfoot, with plenty of slipping and sliding. By now Anne was a very tired walker and the weather didn't do her any favours as the hail came back for the last half hour or so. Fortunately it's not as bad as rain as you don't actually get wet, and the trees took any sting out of them, but it was still a relief when we eventually got back to the car park.

This was one of the slower walks we had done. Aside from one or two small stops to slide under bridges, find short cuts etc we didn't really stop for long. I think we just walked slower. And in a positive way I could tell. A few walks into my training and I was more than happy to have continued at a faster pace, but Trailwalker is a team event (and I had the map!!) so I could hardly push on faster and leave one or two stragglers.

Once again the softshell jacket held up well in the wind and hail and rain. My feet stayed dry in my Salomon Elios XCR, and the skiing long johns under my trousers didn't chaff. Result!