On the most perfect day, an elite team of 7 walkers started out on our 12.5 mile walk from Battle station. The weather was glorious, sunny & warm with cooling breezes when required. 

We started on the 1066 Country Walk which might be worth doing more of as it goes from Pevensey to Rye & sounds lovely. There were several miles of undulating paths in woodland, surrounded by trees with their vibrant spring-green leaves, & birdsong. If any of us had been feeling stressed this would have been the perfect antidote.

The next part was over meadows in a river valley with sheep & lambs enjoying being alive on such a morning, or so I imagined. We had a picnic lunch sitting on some very handy, low brick structures by the Brede Valley Waterworks. The path zigzagged after that for no obvious reason & we made a group decision to scale a gate that was padlocked for absolutely no visible reason & simply led to the lane which we needed to walk along. However, it had a vicious line of barbed wire over the top rung so we were forced to abandon our vote for freedom of movement & follow the official line.

We stopped for a drink at The Queen’s Head at Seddlescombe. We debated which queen it was named after & it seems that it is Elizabeth 1st, apparently to commemorate a visit by her to the pub. There is a resident flock of white geese in the village which are cared for by the publicans who have installed a small state of the art bathing pond for them in the garden. We watched some goslings slithering in & out, watched over by an adult goose – which pleasing sight reminds us what a wonderful thing our walks are!

There was a pretty unkempt sunken path afterwards where we had to crawl under a fallen tree, & then – the high spot- we skirted a Sewage Works! Most of us were fairly ignorant about how they actually work so a bit of research is called for. 

We made it back to Battle station in good time & the train arrived on schedule so overall, we had an excellent day .

Report by Harriet, photos by Geoffrey.