Awoke to a hearty English breakfast, toast, juices and tea at the B&B. It would have been the perfect start and we even managed to broker a promising conversation with a man at the breakfast table. Unfortunately myself and Craig fell silent (as much with bewilderment as disgust) when conversation turned to stabbings in London. A sample (and I paraphrase here somewhat):
"[Daughter of ex-pat couple] Yah, I like used to live in a tota
lly rough area of London with stabbings and shit but now I live in a really nice part that's boring, just how I like it."
"[Annoying girl at breakfast table from Bristol] Yah, I like so know what you mean but it's a really great city. It's totally not as bad as how New York City used to be or L.A. is now. Yah, We're not as bad as America."
"[Mother] Yah, stabbings are bad."
Thankfully the dad told us who Izaak Walton was: A famous fisherman who is buried in Winchester Cathedral! We would later have a pint in The Izaak Walton in East Meon.
Anyway, the walk itself. Beautiful weather. My racy pale blue sun hat purchased from a charity shop that morning paid for itself over the course of the day. Within an hour we were 'uponthedowns' and enjoying the scenery. The whole day was glorious, we made great time until lunch at The Shoe in Exton (12 miles from Winchester). After that we climbed Old Winchester Hill and enjoyed the sights, although the iron age barrows were not immediately obvious until we viewed them later from a mile away. Likewise we think we saw the Isle of Wight but it was difficult to make out (our eyesight is somewhat lacking). This long opening stage seemed to go on forever through sunny fields and tree-lined paths. We navigated our first field of cows and summoned up extraordinary willpower to walk past a riverside cafe advertising cold beers! We were left to rue that decision as we climbed Salt Hill in the searing afternoon heat, our only entertainment being my long description of the plot and meaning of La Haine to Craig. [Pictured below is the last section of day one - we descended into this valley, through the farm you can see in the middle of the picture and on into the hills just right of centre.]
Finally we arrived at The Sustainability Centre at around half 5 to discover the kitchen of the hostel was beyond our use as a party of 30+ people had booked the whole building for a 21st birthday celebration. Anyway, we were allowed to scavenge some breakfast food and take it back to our Yurt, whereupon we mulled over our options for the evening meal. Tired and hungry we tried to order pizza from the nearest town six miles away. Failing in that task we opted to walk to East Meon two miles down a village road with no pavement. So dangerous was this that we decided it was best not to attempt a return in the dark so we ate at The Izaak Walton pub and ordered a usurious cab journey back to the Yurt.
Our sleep in the Yurt was nothing short of magical by candle light (tea lights lit with matches borrowed from neighbourly campers) though I was awoken by a pattering of small feet outside at around 2 in the morning. I convinced myself that this was a lovely badger and not a rat eating the apple core that Craig had left outside and drifted back to sleep. End of Day Two.
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