Holy crap just walked 40km and my feet havent melted

Well that was a interesting trip. Friday night our team went to Boxhill & Westhumble, then walked to a tiny old cottage in the middle of a wood which is a national trust property converted into a Youth Hostel (Tanners Hatch). Interesting place, tiny, full of unfortunately rude germans (sorry Jan but they were loud til very late, and woke up very early and didnt stop slamming the doors THEN nicked the tomatoes we'd brought!). Anyways I digress, we walked there, checked in then walked BACK to find a pub which was right by the station. Had a few pints and dinner at a lovely pub called `The Stepping Stones`. Will definitely pop in there again sometime. Great food and interesting locals :)

After it got a little dark we headed back into the woods, head torches on ;). We called it a night, but the germans (see above) decided it was fine to be in the room right beneath us and with a paper thin ceiling talk very loudly and slam the doors until very late. Altho i kept being woken by ANOTHER germans loud snoring (again sorry Jan). Once finally got to sleep was woken by a loo trip at 330am ;) then by another about 630, THEN by the now infamous loud germans who woke up and thought it was acceptable to assume we were awake and talked even LOUDER and slam the door constantly..

After a very comically improvised breakfast of scrambled egg, bacon and toast (sans tomatoes *grrrs towards germans again) and one fire alarm set off. WE set off. So to recap we'd walked to the hostel, back to the pub then back to the hostel, this equalled 11.5km before we'd even actually started and we had the walk to the bottom of Boxhill to come. Now this was supposed to be a simple direct line walk up the North Downs way to the base of the hill, but this required us to follow signs that just didnt exist.. So we ended up going a very strange route just to our starting point :) All good practise tho yeh?

So after walking thru some lovely vineyards (Dom on cloud 9) we got to the stepping stones themself, which are at the base of the Hill..

Hope the guys dont mind me posting this pic, showing off Rich's shorts ;)

I'd heard about Boxhill before, and its supposed to be a big deal to climb but nothing really prepared me for how tough this was. It was relentless STEEP, my GOD was it steep and never ending! Check out the altitude info on the walk details. That was probably not the best start you could do for a long walk! :) Anyways once we got to the top and got our breaths back we lost them again when we saw the view.

It just looked so amazing looking down and back on where we'd just walked from.

Anyways, long story short ;) we walked for another 22k and encountered a few more pretty evil ascents and descents before arriving in Caterham, altho the trek thru the cemetary was a little creepy especially the guy who just appeared walking up the steps we needed to go down to leave and he didnt look the sorta person you'd want to see in a graveyard!!!


We popped into Pizza Express, with `express` being the hope as we were going to get a train in 40 mins back to Home.. which needed yet another walk from the station.. So all in all my total walking in the 24 hour period was 42.35km!!! thats a lot, but actually only 42% of what we need to do in July!! in the same period!! OUCCCCCH

So am home, my feet are NOT killing me, altho am sure will be stiff/sore in the morning. I've had a lovely dinner and cuppas from my sweety (yay) and its time to relax so for now will say ta ta, and once again remind you of why am doing this :)