It is day 3 and the weather had changed, the forest was shrouded in fog and there were patches of steady drizzle in the air. I headed off at pace to find some shelter within the light woodland in this part of Ashdown Forest.

Thankfully the drizzle eased off after a while which was lucky as I was now walking across farmland above Weirwood Reservoir, which brought back memories of sailing – though without a breath of wind in the air the reservoir was as flat as a millpond so the water was just the domain of the fishermen.

Shortly after leaving the reservoir behind I was in Forest Row, and being a bank holiday was almost deserted so crossing the A22 was much easier than the day before. Heading out of the village there was another golf course in the way which meant laboriously picking my way across fairways and between tees and greens.

While the Ashdown Forest Centre above Forest Row was closed the car park was heaving (if only they tried to go 100 yards further on the much larger car park was empty!) They picked a good spot though as the forest dropped down a steep northern ridge with excellent views – despite the low cloud.Heading south east there was just one valley to drop down into, crossing a ford, and then up all the way to Galleons Leap (along paths and rides that had been turned to mush by horses so all the mud removed in the ford was quickly replaced).

It was only a short walk today of 9 miles to complete the circuit. The pedometer read 18,819 steps – I think it is back to the drawing board with pedometers as my theoretical stride length would be more than 76cm!! Perhaps it as only counting steps made by my left foot and needs to be doubled? More testing required.

Center of map

Route

View the map in Google Maps, or here is the Google Earth KML file.