Pootler

Our regional landscape has its origins in mud on the seabed, so at this point in our trudge through the stygian gloom of geological history, let us take a closer look at that mud, in all its various flavours, gloopy, crumbly and the various types of stone that it morphed into.  Apologia. The passively interested reader might find this the most stultifyingly tedious post on this blog, with  graphics that are awe-inspiringly uninspiring, even compared with the low standards I set.  It is here  for the sake of completeness and  because, worryingly, I think that mud has a story to tell. But you might find it helps you to doze off.    While tootling around the planet on its way toward its current position on the globe, South East England often found itself in a liminal zone between land and sea, sometimes one and sometimes the other, depending on the sea levels. What we see today is based on the compacted sediments of sand, gravel and biological detritus th...

  Brass Point nr. Beachy Head I introduced the Chalk in my previous post.  The hills rolling downs of pure white stone surround London and the Thames Valley. A lot of this is 'ancient' country, the bleached clean bones of old England and  Tolkien's Barrow Downs.   Wonderful stuff.  There aren’t many places in the world where pure chalk rises to the surface, and England has most of it.  If you are walking, it is usually dry and springy underfoot and on a bike the slopes are merciful. Cretaceous Earth Its origins are described in the first two posts in my 'Deep Past' series; Links: ' From Hell to High Water '  and ' Coming Up For Air '.  A short reprise. The chalk was formed at the bottom of an ancient sea at  around the same latitude where you now find North Africa. Sharks swam in it, crabs scuttled along the bed and coiled carnivorous cephalopods called ammonites floated about.  At the bottom of the food chain, then as now, were clouds o...

  Link to GPX File of Route   The High Weald This  is a 43 mile route through the High Weald ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ from Crawley to the outskirts of Eastbourne, which might appeal to anyone who wants an off road trail that doesn’t involve the very rough tracks beloved of the mountain bikers.  It follows National Cycle Route 21, so mapping it involved very little effort on my part,. I have eschewed waypoints simply because I am ignorant of any compelling things to look out for on the route. The attraction is simply the generously wooded countryside; ‘Weald’ comes from the old German word ‘Wald’ and means ‘Wooded’.  But the ‘High’ in the name isn’t a misnomer and there are a few climbs between miles 21 and 31 as you head south, before a gentle cruise down from the Weald towards the coast on the ‘Cuckoo Trail’ towards Polegate Station. This is one of the many trails built on railway lines cut by Beeching in the 1960's and I believe it ran from P...

Route GPX File :    Avon & Test Valley Route This route follows three river valleys; the Avon, Dun and Test, which dissect the rolling chalk hills of the Salisbury Plain and the Berkshire Downs. It ends at Newbury which is on the same train line as Pewsey. For the most part it follows quiet roads and scattered hamlets in open countryside. Leaving Pewsey Station, the minor road along the east side of the Avon Valley connects villages that are attractive pretty without reaching chocolate box standards. Approaching Salisbury, you pass the hillfort and castle of Old Sarum, where English Heritage recommend you ‘sniff out the old latrine pits’. Lovely. But a visit is worthwhile, if only for the views. Salisbury itself is a handsome city and worth a detour. In both cases you can see (in)famous 123m tall spire of its Cathedral. Великолепный ! The pre-historic landscape of Stonehenge is only a few miles to the east. Old Sarum The route to and along the Dun is quiet and pleasant ...

  GPX File of the Route.   Avalon This 70 mile route starts from Castle Carey, a small town in the low hills of South Somerset which, rather surprisingly, is a regular stop for trains on the main line from Paddington to the West Country. It is an easy ride, so there should be time for a bit of sightseeing. I like to do it clockwise to get the steepest hill out of the way early on. Accommodation at around the half way point on the route itself is sparse, but a short detour takes you into Burnham on Sea where there is plenty. Some five miles south of Castle Carey you pass Cadbury Castle, a candidate for King Arthur’s Camelot and a colossal hillfort. Really, it is worth climbing up it just to get an impression of the scale of the beast. It covers the equivalent of over ten football pitches. Keep in mind that the imposing ramparts were once even higher and the ditches deeper. The organisation and effort (if not the engineering) that it must have taken to build it in the Br...