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| title | summary | type | emoji | date | topics | tags | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leith Hill Tower hike | A delightful Saturday walk out of London, from Ockley to Dorking. | GPX | 🥾 | 2023-08-14T07:14:19+01:00 |
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{{< hike gpx="leith-hill-tower" length="15km" elevation="283m" time="3h43 + 45m lunch" >}}
On Saturday we went for day hike across Surrey Hills, from Ockley Station to Dorking, via the beautiful vistas of Leith Hill Tower. It was such a lovely hike!
Being just over an hour from Victoria Station in London made it easy to get to and back from within a day, and it gave us the opportunity to visit the highest point in South East England — all 304m of it 😂
{{< figure src="leith-hill-tower.webp" alt="Leith Hill Tower stretching up above the treeline on an overcast day." caption="Leith Hill Tower looks a lot more foreboding here than it should!" >}}
Surrey Hills is an Area of outstanding Natural Beauty—one of the nearest to London—and it's easy to see why. As the brief rainfall that welcomed us onto our hike faded away we came across Barn Cottage, with a helpful QR code carefully posted to a tree at its entrace. It pointed us to a website describing the history of this stunning Orné style "chocolate box" cottage, and the landscape before us.
{{< figure src="barn-cottage.webp" alt="The beautiful Barn Cottage, with its slanted roof nearly reaching the floor, black wooden walls, and pretty white windows and doors, all coated in greenery of many kinds." caption="I can imagine reading a book at the garden table here, and I can't stop imagining it." >}}
The hike was easy most of the way, with a half an hour of noticeable incline, and 15 more minutes right before the tower that definitely let us know we were travelling vertically. Nothing as severe as the 2,100m two-day hike {{< friend "chris" >}} was taking on at the same time near Vancouver, but still very enjoyable — and a wonderful view for lunch!
{{< figure src="tower-top.webp" alt="A selfie of JP and Yvette looking out across the UK's South East landscape from the top of a tower." caption="It was a beautiful view, even with the overcast greyness — if you squint you can see London over Yvette's left shoulder, near the tree breaking the horizon." >}}
We finished off our hike in Dorking. Sadly Denbies Vineyard closes at 5pm, so we missed out on a tour, but we did briefly visit the sunny Star Inn for a refreshing half, and then the charming The King's Arms for a tasty bite and another celebratory tipple.
All in all, an extremely good day!
{{< figure src="finishing-half.webp" alt="The three of us clink our half-pint glasses in celebration." >}}