Pilgrims Way – Day 4

• Start: Denbies Vineyard, Dorking, Surrey
• End: Reigate Manor Hotel, Reigate, Surrey
• Distance: 14.58 km
• Time: 05 hours 55 minutes 25 seconds

Breakfast at Denbies was, as expected, a rather superior affair.

Washed down with freshly pressed grape juice!

The day’s walking started easily enough with a gentle flat stroll along the side of the A24 Dorking bypass, followed by fun and games crossing the Mole River by stepping stones. It isn’t easy jumping from stone to stone with a large bag on your back!! However, despite both us keeping our phones at the ready, the comedy moment failed to appear and we both crossed safely. 😁

However, after this, the day went mildly pear-shaped. I had promised Craig a nice restful day with not much in the way of climbing, 240m of climbing in total, in fact.

Our actual total amount of climbing today was 391m!!😱

The big spike at around 3 km is Box Hill. The guide book said to climb some stairs after the stepping stones, in the direction of Box Hill, and then turn right and walk along parallel with the river.

So, we climbed,

and climbed,

and climbed,

and climbed!

Eventually, we turned right, not along a nice gentle river path, but out onto the top of Box Hill. The views however, were spectacular, even in less than perfect visibility.

We now had to try and find a way back down to the correct path, which turned out to be quite steep and treacherous.

After that the walk was lovely, through quiet and secret woodland. For most of the rest of the day we hardly saw a soul.

We stopped for lunch at Betchworth, passing a large disused quarry and it’s associated lime kiln.

The quarry had been used to film two Tom Baker Doctor Who adventurers, Genesis of the Daleks in 1975 and The Deadly Assassin in 1976.

We sat on the station platform to eat our lunch, purchased from the Farm Shop at Denbies.

Amongst other things, it consisted of the worlds largest Scotch Egg and some rather curiously flavoured crisps. But it was very tasty.

After lunch the route continued similarly, through beautiful but also deserted woodland until we emerged at the top of Reigate Hill.

We are staying tonight at the Reigate Manor Hotel. Originally a Georgian Manor house it is very grand and a big hit as a wedding venue, Lauren and Emily are having their reception here this evening.

As a result, the rest of the guests had to eat in the bar. Despite this, and the inevitable slower service, the curry that we both had was really tasty and the obviously over-worked staff were very pleasant and friendly.

Tomorrow is the longest stage of this years trip at over 27 km. We will be criss-crossing the M25 as we move from Surrey into Kent.