Rain. Mud. No dragons.

A dragon update well overdue. Anton has been straying into writing and has a host of bizarrely Tolkeinesque material which will appear here soon. Meanwhile I spoke to the guys at Southern Counties radio and have to urgently edit down the soundfiles we have of the dragon walk. I will soon make some of these sound files available as a teaser on this site. So stay tuned dragon fans!

Anton wanted to trace a part of our route which from which we took a detour last time. We set off for a station in the mud somewhere and walked for a few hours without stopping in steady unremitting rain. Fortunately we passed a shop where I could buy some waterproof overtrousers. Not our best ever walk, our route being blocked by a fenced off bridge, and paths that had been closed. However, there were few people about and there is a grim enjoyment to trudging in the fresh air in an unremitting deluge.

Terrifying moment towards the end of the walk. An enormous and savage Alsatian dog came rushing at us barking and displaying its incisors. Fortunately it made straight for Anton who, being frozen with terror, looked fairly bleak. I pressed on bravely, muttering words of encouragement until the dog bounded off briefly to fetch the two other Alsatians that were baying in the distance. Anton sped across the field as if all the hounds of hell were after him, and once we'd got through a gate, white with shock, he started ungratefully blaming me.

Eventually we called a halt after finding a pub in a village near Horley, as Anton said, with some feeling, that he needed a drink. It was marvellous to briefly escape the rain and drink a couple of beers before getting a taxi to the station.

Below Anton and a sign, a wet country lane, lichen, some farm houses, a meadow, a strange old bridge, and how it sculpted the rainflooded river.

Approaching St Leonards forest

The Philosophy of Dragon Questing

"It is better to seek an imaginary Dragon, than live in a world without dragons."

The settling dust

Takes a while to get things sorted... More photos and various accounts to be uploaded shortly. Anton is going to post material too. Clearly his opinions and perspectives are his own, and where they differ from my account must be treated with a degree of caution. We're uploading stuff chronologically as they happened.... So the story unfolds below....

Beer and The Dragon

Below us drinking beer completely knackered and boiling hot having toiled through St Leonard's Forest on the third day, waiting to be picked up by Anna in the car. And proof that there is at least one dragon in the forest, albeit a comedy one.

Shadows on the Arun

The walk ended a matter of hours ago in triumph and exhaustion. Our findings following our journey along the course of the Arun from Littlehampton to its origins in the dragon haunted St Leonards Forest will be added here soon.

Below our Tilley-hatted shadows on a nettle bank of the river Arun, a shot accidentally taken in chic black and white.

A Swan at the end of the road

Medical science will puzzle for years how a few sandwiches and some sparkling mineral water can have such a transformative effect. But after leaving Amberely, Anton and I felt entirely reinvigorated. And I felt better than I had done all day.

The afternoon grew hot and there were many more miles to walk. Left the picture perfect village looking at the lichen covered walls and gardens burgeoning with flowers. Uphill, pausing to restock with water, then across cornfields and copses and over streams jewelled with electric blue dragonflies back into the grassy river valley. We rejoined the river Arun after squelching across a marshy field to walk beside it to Pulborough. We were very tired by the time we reached this town, but then had another stretch to go to get to Fittleworth.

Walking along the side of a busy road for a while, I almost stepped on another slow worm. Nearing our destination, we sloped down some beautiful country lanes and were greeted by a large airborne stag beetle whirring in the late afternoon. Towards the end, my stride length had shrunk to that of a Geisha, until at last we rounded the corner onto a road, and through a tunnel of trees was the very welcome sight of The Swan at Fittleworth.

This 14th Century coaching Inn was our berth for the night. We arrived to a cool welcome from the barman however (being hot and sweaty and flecked with mud). Nevertheless we gulped a pint of beer in the bar before going upstairs to our rooms for a welcome rest and shower. The floor of my room turned out to have a very 14th century slope but was nonetheless fine.

The evening spent cheerfully quaffing beers and eating. I had a Sussex smokie, which was a dish of smoked haddock, spinach and melted cheese, Anton going for moules, we both had steaks and I rounded it off with a bread and butter pudding. Went to bed feeling very refreshed and incredibly full.