On one Sunday, we decided to go for a country walk in East Sussex with a dog friend, which was about 1.5 hours away from London. We chose a walk that took us through the Winnie the Pooh's 100 Acre Forest and Poohstick Bridge from the website of a walking club, and faithfully followed the site's very detailed directions. We thought maybe we'd do the "short" walk of 14? which was supposed to take about 4 hours, but well ... .
We started out in high spirits.
It was blue bell season, and wild blue bell fields were found everywhere.
We trekked through grassy fields,
dreamy blue belle forests,
pastures,
and greeted many farm animals.
Over countless stiles,
sometimes stopping at historical sites,
we walked and walked.
The dogs were very excited about being in the country.
They chased one another,
and tackled one another
to their hearts' desire.
By the time we reached the Poohstick Bridge
and took a little break at a pub in the nearest village of Hartfield, we had walked for about 5 hours.
"Are we there yet?"
Even the dogs looked a bit tired at this point.
We went back out again to do the last leg of the journey,
through more forests
and more fields.
At this point, we had been walking well over 7 hours.
Dusk was falling rapidly and so were people's footsteps.
Here, our faithful friend Trey was concerened that the team was being left behind by the trek leader. What a nice boy.
We had made it to the car just in time before nightfall. If we were 20 minutes late, we would have been wondering around in pitch-black darkness. Not a very good idea in the wilderness where we had no sense of directions.
↑ This was the map of our trek.
We left the car at the train station of Ashurst on top right and came down the right red line to the green line through the 100 Acre Forest, going up though the town of Hartfield and back to the station. It was about 20? long and took us 8 hours!
By the time we got back to London (which was of course another 1.5 hours later) and washed the muddy dog, it was already 11p.m.. Perhaps not the best way to spend a Sunday, maybe, but on the bright side, English countryside sure was glorious and we certainly enjoyed it thoroughly.
Pooped Sakura
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