All along the motorway there wasn't any snow but as soon as we turned off I could see the sides of the road were snowy. As our parking was in the country side and I hadn't been there before, slight panic set in - are we gonna make it all the way with my summer tires. I have been driving in winter conditions and don't find it a problem, but we had studded tires. What I've also noticed in England is that it's not me who's causing problems and dangerous situations in those winter conditions - it's the other drivers who don'y have a clue how to drive. Anyway, I didn't want to turn around just yet at least until we were in a proper standstill. We could have also just parked at a road side and done the walk from there. And it was so beautiful - we had truly reached a winter.
Maurice got a camera for Christmas as he has been showing interest in photography and has been taking mine. So this was a first trip out with his camera. So I stopped the car so that he could take some pictures of winter. Suddenly I saw a herd of deer running down the hill. I drove slowly a bit forward when they changed their mind and started running back up.
Soon we found our destination and parked at the closed campground, near a farm. This is probably the only time I'm not actually scared of the bull on my walk. What a magnificent animal they are! Farmers must be very brave to handle them, that's my only conclusion!
Our path was supposed to take us to the Ridgeway and as the name says, it's at the top of the hill. So here started my hate part - we had to climb up the hill. I know it's not even a proper mountain but it really is hard work getting up there. Today I can even feel my leg muscles. But that is probably more to do with our fun descent which I'll talk about a bit later.
On top of the hill there was a reminder why I keep torturing myself. The view was magnificent! We had made it to the winter wonderland.
When we do our walks I prefer places where there are not many people. That's one reason that makes them so magical - you feel like there is no one else in the world. All the forests and mountains belong to you. Since it was cold and snowy, I didn't expect many people out and about anyway, but I was very wrong. As the White Horse Hill is a National Trust place, it was packed with people. The white horse itself was under the snow, so we decided to come back in summer time even with all the people present.
Soon we had to say good bye to this winter wonderland and started the descent. We were on a small road and only now I realised how slippery it is. We tried to avoid visually icy patches but most of the time you couldn't even see where the ice was. Even our dog lost her footing quite a few times. While we had several near misses, we managed to avoid proper fall. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun while doing it, clinging on to each other, screaming and laughing at the same time.
When we finally made it to the normal ground, there wasn't much left of the snow either. It's as if we had been dreaming and now woken up to reality. Our path took us through the mud which is normal to this time of year. I made a mistake when choosing this walk. I thought it's gonna be 6.9 miles but turned out to be 6.9 km. Maurice was very happy. Don't think we could have done any more than that or we could but it would have been a real push.
I have signed up to walk 1000 miles next year and it's nearly here. This might be the last post of 2017 so hope you all had nice Christmas and wishing you a very very happy 2018 with all your dreams coming true.
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