The Wooton Hatch is very close to the Greensand Way. It was our evening meal destination and we were delighted with the absolutely lovely reception we got when we arrived. We both headed straight for the toilets for a 'clean up'.
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| The Wotton Hatch Pub |
With all shame gone and tiredness kicking in I simply stripped down in the main part of the mens toilets and had an all over 'wash n wipe' with baby wet wipes we brought with us......
........It was bliss
I was standing naked in the middle of the toilet area (not a cubicle) hoping that a local wouldnt just amble in and find a hobbit washing his little pecker with a mad expression on his face, and I was lucky that no-one interrupted my evening 'shower'. I even washed my hair in the sink and dried my hair by crouching under the hand dryer, one of the advantages of being short. I donned my 'shatner trousers' and walked stiffly into the bar like a zombie with thermal booties on.
We had 2 pizzas for £10 ! some recovery shakes and some Sports Drink and sat warm and fuzzy in comfy clothes whilst all around us the well dressed Surrey clientele stared on in disbelief. It was great. The service was brilliant and they even found us a table where we could charge our phones from sockets nearby.
Whilst claire cleverly poured the recovery shake powder in a little at a time and stirred I dumped the whole lot in one go and had to deal with a floating battleship of powder that wouldnt mix in. I basically half inhaled and half drank mine.
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| drinking a well earned Sports Drink at the end of our first Greensand Way marathon training day |
It was time for Claires campcraft experience to kick in (she is an ace guide leader) and my furtive imagination to begin dreaming up every possible way I was going to be eaten/beaten/murdered/killed during the night by some strange woodland creature/monster/alien/axemurderer
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| The Spacious and Comfortable Vango Banshee 200 on the Greensand Way |
When Claire thinks of camping she sees it as non stop fun and japes rather like this
Carry on Camping
Scary Movie 4 Brokeback Scene
Austin Powers Camping
When I think of camping I start to imagine which woodland critter will get to me first in my tent, like maybe this guy big foot
We settled for an area of woodland on the Greensand Way just off the path that wasnt in a private field or area. We were amazingly warm inside the spacious tent. We actually had to keep the zip door open for about 30 mins to cool the tent down.
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| The spacious interior of the Vango Banshee 200 Tent on the Greensand Way |
I was wrong
The woods at night are a noisy place to be, The pheasants squawk and the foxes yowl.....
..........all night.
Badgers drives quadbikes, Deer wear big army boots, all the birds fire shotguns, squirrels clear woodland with chainsaws and the bunnies have illegal raves until 6 or 7am. The Owls have band practice and the mice eat crisps loudly.
Every rustle nearby set me on edge and although I was very comfy and warm I was very much 'one eye open'. Claire was used to camping this way and spent a long time reassuring me that I was an idiot.
As the night wore on and I spent every effort I had to not think about the Blair Witch Project my tiredness took over and I slept in 30 minute bursts.
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| A misty Greensand Way sunrise |
As the dawn chorus started and the light returned I could have slept for a few more hours but 8am arrived and it was time to get up for our second marathon in two days.
I probably only needed another 7 or 8 hours sleep to be on top form.
Day 2 would be a doddle.............
This sounds familiar to when I was camping in slovenia, after a hard days bike ride. We found a lovely spot in the woods, only for the local maize farmers to start mechanically harvesting their produce at *midnight* for *four hours* in the field next to us.
ReplyDeleteWhen it woke me up I thought we were being abducted by aliens for about ten terrifying seconds.