Easter Monday: Guildford to Dorking (Walking to Canterbury, Day 2)

[stapsdoes101things]

The great thing with this pilgrimage, about taking the train home and back again, is that you can be sure you're picking up exactly where you left off. The station is a fixed point, where 'somewhere in Guildford' isn't. Even so, I went over my route from Saturday for a few hundred yards, dropping down from the station to the towpath and following the river as far as the town bridge. There I crossed over and went up the High Street as far as Quarry Street, which I walked down on the off-chance that St Mary's was open. It wasn't, so I kept going.



The North Downs Way runs a little way south of Guildford proper. After crossing the Wey at Shalford it runs along the edge of Chantry Wood, which is where I joined it. It's well way-marked and easy to follow. Through the wood and out the other side, walking up on the banks of the path so as not to have to plough through dry sand, and then a steep climb up St Martha's Hill. I stopped just before the summit to get my breath back, eat breakfast, and consider the next step. Originally I had intended to stick to the North Downs Way, which is more direct - but I wanted to stop in Shere and I hadn't brought anything for lunch. For the most part, the North Downs Way skirts around the places that one might expect to have pubs or sandwich shops. I changed my mind.





St Martha's was closed, too. This didn't worry me, however; I'll be visiting it with the PCC in a couple of weeks. On coming down the other side of the hill, I left the North Downs Way and joined the Pilgrims' Way. This is considerably trickier to follow, and I was getting the map out at every fork in the road all the way to Shere.



The church at Shere is dedicated to St James, the first of the twelve apostles to be martyred and the pilgrims' saint. There are cockle shells on the kneelers and a tiny Madonna and Child, thought to be from a pilgrim's staff, in the wall.





While in Shere, I stopped for a lemonade and a bite of lunch at the White Horse - and another look at the map. Or, rather, maps - traversing from the Guildford and Farnham sheet to the Dorking, Box Hill and Reigate one was imminent. So that was quite exciting. I was not looking forward to the next stage, though - climbing up to rejoin the North Downs Way. I'd done that before and not had much breath left at the end of it. As it happened, I went up Combe Lane and Combe Bottom by mistake, and by the time I'd worked out where I was had almost got to the top. It felt a lot less steep than the previous route I'd taken, though that may of course have been my imagination.

Once safely back on the North Downs Way it was a level, shady walk on a well-kept bridleway between tall conifers. A group of cyclists whizzed past me; I heard them say they'd be in the region of Toulouse in ten days.



After a while, one leaves the top of the ridge and moves into chalky paths along the face of the Downs. Oak trees, silver birches. Sun on my right. Something slithered out of the way of my clumpy feet. A slow worm. (They're not slow.) Waymarkings for 'Walk the Chalk' - Dorking to Gomshall. I considered following them down into Dorking, but trying to do it backwards was risky: too easy to miss them. I stuck with the OS map and the North Downs Way until I came out the other side of Ranmore Common.





I was half-tempted to buy an ice cream from the van in the National Trust car park, but a loo would have been more helpful. I left the path and began the long descent into Dorking. A few hundred yards of road-walking - dodging Chelsea tractors every twenty seconds - was mercifully ended by the discovery of a footpath running alongside the lane. This,
while overgrown, was infinitely preferable to the road and not actually too nettley.





I came out near Dorking West station, passing "The Pilgrim" on my way. Then came the exciting search for a public lavatory on a bank holiday Monday. There isn't one. Second best: a pub - but I needed to get some cash out, because it's terribly poor form to go in just to use the loo. One has to buy a drink at some point in the exercise. Well, I found a cashpoint, and then a pub that didn't look too horrible - and indeed it wasn't.

And then I bought my ice cream at a petrol station, and consequently missed the most convenient train back to Guildford by about a minute. (I know, because I saw it go while I was waiting to cross the road.) But really, it was a lovely evening, and even if Dorking Deepdene station is a bit of a dump, there was a friendly blackbird to talk to.

Not at all bad for the first day of serious walking - although my thighs have only today stopped aching. Tomorrow I'm walking from Dorking to Merstham, and on Saturday Merstham to - who knows?