DAY SIX: AMBERLEY to COCKING

No jokes please! It's a real place, poor souls. 

Field to field to field and not much else except making ground. Was it beautiful? Yes. Was it interesting? Sometimes. Did it feel like someone had tied an iron ball to my feet? YES. 

Walking on chalk and flint is an ankle buster. Wet chalk and flint is a knee buster. Then the day ended with pouring rain and a cold front. It wasn't one of the best.








There are still things to see and learn. The countryside outside Amberley was worthy of a Constable painting. Maybe not the drinking station, but the cows, distant villages with church steeples, the castle hotel and winding River Arun.

More Than One Road to Cross Today

Pheasant shooting season is coming up.

Another memorial, this time a mounting block inscribed to James Wentworth-Fitzwilliam or "Toby". 

The Climb up Bignor Hill

The Latin signpost is to show the direction of the Roman towns on Stane Street, the Roman road that passed where I was standing. Not far down the hill is the Bignor Roman Villa. Stane Street connected Chichester with London and would have been a major trade route bringing corn, iron and trade goods from Europe. 

And this is it! The "agger" or raised embankment of the Roman road. TA DA! Pretty underwhelming, but how often do you get to stand on a Roman road? 

Chipping away at the miles, especially since today was turning out to be a cocking ... oops, I mean clocking mileage day. 

The Way cuts through a cross dyke. A cross dyke is a linear earthwork believed to be a prehistoric land boundary, like an earth fence. They are often accompanied by a block or curb stone , which I saw 2 along the route. They may represent territories of ritual and influence and are assumed to have been constructed over 1000 years ago .

View at Lunch

This couple, all in black with two black dogs, walked along the Way for a while. I don't know why but I liked them, there was something happy and peaceful about them. Later their dog came to us with a big stick. There are many little interactions with people along the way. There's something uniting about walking.

The scenery is changing a bit and I'm glad. Its good to see trees. The radio towers is where I had lunch. 
Factoid: Lunch is usually pilfered breakfast food: cheese, ham, hard boiled egg, bacon, dried apricots, Paleo granola, water, maybe a cookie or candy like Fruit Pastilles or Jelly Babies. 

Tegleaze Sign Post - You Are Here

 Aren't these guys cool? Sweet black and white faces and gnarly horns. What kind? Dunno! 

Some place names of the day were Stickingspit Bottom, Gumber Corner, Denture, Wapelgate, Heyshott, Egg Bottom.

Another Cross Dyke and The Rains Came

Shepherd's Hut

A footpath took me into Cocking where a kind village store owner took pity on us, called a friend of his who was a driver and took us back to Amberley, as we'd been stuck with no taxi. It was a  general cock up in Cocking.



And as if that's not bad enough, try these:

Twatt, Shetland (note, there is another Twatt in Orkney)

Sandy Balls, a long-established holiday center in New Forest, Hampshire, England with a name dating back to Henry VIII

Shitterton, Dorset, England

Hole of Horcum, North York Moors, England

Spanker Lane, Nether Heage, Derbyshire

 Butt Hole Road, Conisbrough, South Yorkshire

Cockermouth, Allerdale, Cumbria