2012 was notable for us not having the time available to take on a multiday hike. Instead our main holiday was to visit friends in Ontario Canada, where we did take the opportunity to try out the local trails, taking in part of the Rideau Trail into Ottawa, sections of the Rideau canal and Ottawa river and a downtown walk including the Rideau river.
The North Downs way was our main focus, one day at a time, over several weekends. We made surprisingly swift progress, reaching Charing in Kent before our summer holidays and the Olympics interrupted. From here onwards is too far to commute out from London for a single day walk, so we hope to finish this off in 2013, perhaps over a long weekend. Our North Downs progress was as follows:
- Farnham to Guildford (actually in 2011)
- Guildford to Dorking
- Dorking to Caterham
- Caterham to Otford
- Otford to Cuxton
- Cuxton to Bearstead
- Bearsted to Charing
Another area of walking was to National Trust properties, with walks to Chartwell and Polesdon Lacey being the prime examples.
I joined up with my workmate Pete for a couple of stretches of the capital ring that he was undertaking, in the South West and North East of London, and also finished off our own capital ring with the final missing piece from Crystal Palace to Wimbledon Park.
Finally Autumn brought some interesting walks including a couple with Pete, heading onto the South Downs for the Haslemere circular, and a stretch of the Thames Path from Putney to Richmond. We also got a couple of scenic versions of our regular walk from Wimbledon to Richmond, one especially autumnal, the other a cold, clear December.
Stats
In 2012 I covered 359 miles, which I thought was pretty reasonable given that we didn’t take time off for any week-long walks. March was the month with the greatest distance, because I did have a few days off, which allowed for a couple of North Downs stretches and a couple of sections of the Capital Ring with Pete
Longest Walk
Our longest walk was 18.6 miles on the North Downs Way from Caterham to Otford, which was lengthened by the need to walk a mile uphill from Caterham to even reach the path itself. It was one of the less inspiring days weather-wise for walking, being generally misty, but we did get some decent views as the day progressed. The route itself was very interesting, with lots of woodland spring flowers, crossing from Surrey into Kent and a ‘keyhole’ view to Chevening House, official home of the foreign secretary.
Favourite Walk
My favourite walk of the year was probably the visit to Chartwell. In part this was because I assembled the route at the last minute, so it had quite a spontaneous feeling and also it was a beautiful day which was quite rare in 2012! Splitting the walk with a visit to Chartwell in the middle helped to add interest to the walk, and the views out from the building demonstrated why Churchill fell in love with the place. This was an approach we repeated later in the year when visiting Polesdon Lacey and am sure will continue in 2013.
