3 men on a walk 2015: Poundgate

Around the Ashdown Forest - the Poundgate to High Hurst loop

Another nice weather day for walking but still a bit chilly even in the sunshine. The real "Spring Weather" has failed to materialise so far although many of the hedgerow plants think it has.

We chose to walk across the Ashdown Forest today or rather to walk its eastern edge in a loop that took in a reasonable section of the "Vanguard Way" a track that stretches from Croydon in the south of London down to Newhaven on the south coast. We have often met and used sections of this walk and today we added another 3 or 4 mile section to our list.

Parking up at "The crow and Gate" pub at Poundgate meant that we didn't have to walk far for lunch once we had completed the walk! We initially followed the Vanguard way west to get onto the forest and then looped south round through Duddleswell and Fairwarp before turning east towards High Hurstwood which is really the edge of the mid-Weald. From here we turned north and picked up the Vanguard way again which took us back to the car at Poundgate and lunch at the Crow & Gate.

Wildlife was very scarce today but we did see that the wood Anemone's had started to come out in the banks and mixed with the abundance of Primroses that are now in full bloom looked very pretty.