Claire and Jim have a great book of walking trips around London, so Andy and I took that book and proceeded to go on quite a day's adventure. It began with our arrival at the train station. We were sold tickets to what we could only imagine was the correct place. Apparently not. When we asked an employee standing near the trains, he showed us on the map where we wanted to go as compared to where our tickets were taking us. It was like, the other side of England from where we wanted to go!!! SO, he gave us instructions to "Tell him to get his bloody head out of his ass..." and we went back to our initial ticket sales person to get the issue fixed. What we wanted was two outgoing tickets to Amberly and two return tickets from Arundel. This guy just couldn't get it straight. He gave us a second set of tickets to and from Arundel. When we went back a third time, he said, "Oh it'll be fine, you can get off at Amberley with these tickets." Not so much. After we had boarded the train and were en route, the director informed us that we, in fact, could not get off at Amberley with those tickets and would have to get off at Horsham and wait for the train to Amberly.
And so our day trip began!
I was irritated.
At Horsham, we de-trained and hung out for a while waiting for the train to Amberley. There were a couple of tweenage girls sitting next to us who were really funny to listen to.
Andy documented the joining together of trains...
United!!
I documented our tickets NOT being to Amberley as they should have been.
Once we finally got on the correct train to Amberley, there was a problem with the line, so we hung out at Christ's Hospital for a while.
Will we ever make it to Amberley? Has anyone not seen this face?
Of course we will! Someday!
FINALLY, we arrived in Amberley, a bit later than planned. Our walk began immediately!
We first walked up High Titten road.
High Titten road looked a lot like Thomastown Road.
It is so beautiful out there. I took many nature pictures, so get ready.
We could walk through peoples fields. In the states, we'd probably get shot for that!!
Andy got hot and stripped down to his shorts. Immediately after, I took us through a field and we both got soaked. Andy walked through briers.
I don't know why we didn't take the road. I was following the directions in our book!!!
Once we finally got out of the wet brier filled field, we were greeted and promptly sprayed by a tractor.
At long last, we arrived at Burpam, a quaint little town where everyone appears to be a millionaire. This is where we were supposed to eat lunch, but the pub had closed an hour before we got there. At least they let us use their bathroom.
Burpam has a Vicarage
And thatched roofed houses
And a Dr Who phone booth
And a very old church
And a view from afar...
Since the pub was closed, we ate the last of our granola bars and trudged on. We followed a river for the remainder of the walk after Burpam and climbed lots of styles.
Unfortunately, this pub which WAS open was on the other side of the river. We considered trying to beg someone to come and pick us up.
Our final destination was Arundel and this was Arundel Castle. We never got to go up to the castle, but it was cool to see one!
Once we finally made it to Arundel and my whining was getting intollerable, we found a little place to eat which is apparently run by very slutty looking teenagers and then caught a train back to London. Though it got started off a bit rough, our day walking trip was so much fun and I hope we get to do another when we return to London!!