Day 5 - Amberley to Truleigh Hill

The day began auspiciously enough with an early departure from Arundel YHA thwarted by a ridiculous state of affairs at the local train station. The power was out at Arundel and some scum sucking excuse for humanity had stolen some copper wiring from a signalling station and thrown the entire trainline into disarray. The station manager/ticket office guy spent the hour we were at the station in an attitude somewhere between blissful ignorance and sincere yet amused pity for all of us who not only had no clue when or if the train would arrive but also had to endure seeing two trains speed past without stopping and one that did stop declare that they were not stopping at Amberley (our destination); no reason was given for this.

Anyway, we eventually bonded with a lovely old couple of ramblers at the station who were heading the six miles from Amberley to Washington but were concerned about forecasts of gales and the rain that was sheeting down (erratically at this juncture). We got a train with them and eventually arrived at Amberley at around 10.15, wished them look and headed off at great pace to make up for lost time.

For a good half hour the weather was not promising but not disasterous, but then we reached the top of the Downs. I can honestly say it was the most persistently atrocious weather I care to remember. Gale force winds coming in nearly knoecked us off our feet. The rain thrown at us sideways was unending and soaked us to the bone even though we both had waterproof jackets, trousers and boots.

There is very little to say about the walk itself. We saw nothing apart from each other and mist for about five hours. There was one tired old man who greeted us coming the other direction. He looked like he had experienced something truly terrible and longed to know how far he had to go. Fortunately we could comfort him in the knowledge that Washington was a little over a mile away. We hope he made it safely. It was every man for himself on the Downs that day!

There was no shelter for hours, no trees, no hillocks, no nothing. So we resolved to head off the trail to a barn and sheltered there for some food and a change of socks! We eventually got to Truleigh Hill YHA at around 4.30pm. the last two miles crossing the 'industrial' (read ugly) Adur and passing Upper Beeding to go on up to Truleiugh Hill seemed like the longest two miles of my life. Thankfully there were friendly faces and a drying room at the hostel.

Craig almost broke down when he heard they had no license to sell alcohol so our post-dinner entertainment consisted of chatting to a slightly loopy cyclist and a lovely old couple who had tried walking for a few hours and given it up to take a taxi the rest of the way. We started and did not finish a 1,000 piece jigsaw but did find a Humpty Dumpty game based on Jenga that was enthralling to our addled minds. End of Day 5.