NDW Day 1: Farnham to near Dorking

Sue dropped me off about 9.30am at Farnham station, after the usual struggle with the rush hour M25, and off I set. There is a peculiar sculpture thing, to mark the start of the North Downs Way:

As I said in a previous post I have a rather low opinion of the route the NDW takes, but I could find no fault with today. Walking along pleasant sandy tracks through the Surrey hills with sunshine and lovely views.. top class. I put up my little tent in a field a mile or two before Dorking, and after walking 21 miles in hot sun, sleep was not at all a problem..

 Lots of very pleasant sandy trails, through the Surrey hills .. 

.. and some lovely views too. 

 Church at the top of St Martha's Hill near Guildford, confusingly called St Barnabas' .. perhaps they were an item [edit: I was confused, this church is dedicated to St Martha, and St Barnabas has the next church along, a much grander affair on Ranmore Common. The two saints were more or less coexistent, so could still have been an item ..]

View from the churchyard

 

Three graves there of members of the remarkable Freyberg family, who between them share a VC, four DSOs, an MC, a GCMG, a GBE and more. Having googled Bernard Freyberg I bowed to him before leaving.

I ploughed on, and about the 18 mile mark started to look for somewhere to put up the tent. This proved more difficult than I had expected, not because Surrey is built up - it isn't, not around the North Downs, anyway .. the problem with the Downs is that they slope a lot. The ideal campsite is (a) secluded, and (b) flat, and (b) was an issue. Eventually I found somewhere suitable, at the foot of the White Downs, before Dorking, a few feet outside the National Trust boundary.

A squashed grass snake..

.. and below is Richard, who was walking from Winchester to Canterbury, along the Pilgrim's Way. The two often coincide - not here, but here the Pilgrim's Way is also the dual carriageway A31