DAY 9 Sunday 28th September 2014
ROUTE Abinger Hammer to Guildford Cathedral
DISTANCE 11.9 miles
CUMULATIVE MILEAGE 118.1 miles
START POINT White Down Lane, Abinger Hammer - TQ114 489
FINISH POINT Guildford Cathedral - SU 987 500
WEATHER Glorious sunshine and very warm
WALKERS Cally
Charman, Rod Boreham and Graham Palmer
SUPPORT DRIVER Mike Gercke
SUFFER SCORE 3 (a shorter final leg with the end in sight and good company!)
(On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being easy and 10 being unbearable!)
CTOG AWARD ALL OUR SPONSORS & SUPPORTERS
With you, CTOG has been a great success raising valuable funds for
the work of Guildford Street Angels enabling us to reach out and help
more people - thank you everyone!
Canterbury seems such a long time ago and
here we are on Day 9….and what a day!
We
woke to the best weather of the week so far - clear blue skies and warm
sunshine.
Praise the Lord!
Mike rounded up the team first thing in the
support vehicle and we headed back to White Down Lane near Abinger Hammer where
we had finished walking on the previous day.
Here we were
delighted to welcome Annie Cox, Ed Varley and Andy Wheeler as they joined us on our walk
back to Guildford.
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| Rod, Andy, Mike, Graham, Cally and Annie....with Ed behind the lens! |
Our route would take us firstly to
Newlands Corner, then on to St Martha’s Hill and then finally along the
Pilgrims Way back to the River Wey and from there up to the Cathedral.
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| Rays of sunshine! |
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| Miles of smiles! |
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| Ed and Graham |
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| Bright blue skies and glorious sunshine in the Surrey Hills |
The walk to Newlands Corner led us through
the gently undulating paths of Blatchford Downs and Shere Woodlands where we came across the famous WWII pillboxes
which were hastily built all over the British Isles to repel an anticipated
German invasion.
The network of pillboxes provided a stop line and were part of the defences to protect London with the hills themselves forming a natural defence and a perfect position from which to guard against an attack and resist an advance on the country's capital.
Newlands Corner approached and there was time for a
quick drink stop before heading off towards St Martha’s for lunch. Like Box Hill that we visited yesterday,
Newlands Corner is a very popular beauty spot and a great place for a picnic on
a sunny day. It is also a haven for
motorcyclists who meet, exchange stories and generally stand around admiring each other’s bikes! It was also the
scene of crime writer Agatha Christie’s apparent "disappearance" in December 1926
when her car was found overhanging a chalk pit near Newlands Corner, an interesting story in itself. Of course, the famous writer lived for a
further 50 years before eventually dying in 1976.
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| Surrey Hills |
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| Good are the paths He leads us on.....especially the one leading from Canterbury to Guildford! |
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There was not much time available to stop
longer as we had a lunch appointment on the other side of St Martha’s
Hill. As we reached the Church of St. Martha-on-the-Hill it was a welcome sight to see Carolyn Gercke and Fiona Ford who had walked up from the opposite side of the hill to meet
us.
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| St. Martha-On-The-Hill |
Appropriate to our walk from Canterbury, the original name of St Martha’s is believed to
derive from Saints and Martyrs hill, the martyr being St Thomas of
Canterbury.
Although this popular church
dates back to the 12
th century, it fell into ruins by the 18
th
century and was rebuilt between 1848-1850. It's a lovely church in a peaceful position and commands a fantastic view over the Surrey Hills....
A short stroll down the other side of the hill
and we had time to picnic on the grass adjacent to the car park. It was such a beautiful day and we all spread out on the grass to enjoy our
lunch. We were not due at the cathedral
until 4.30pm and so there was plenty of time for the walking team to regale
their friends with stories of the walk so far and share a bite to eat.......and for some of us to just enjoy the chance to catnap in the sun!
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| Cally with best friend and ex-Street Angel, Caroline Layzell (with Graham and Inca in the background!) |
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| Ed Varley, Carolyn Gercke and Ray and Wendy Dunnett |
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| Food and fun in the sun....... |
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| And a chance to catch up on some zzzzzz's!! |
From St Martha’s we walked through Chantry
Wood to pick up the Pilgrims Way as we headed towards the A281 at Shalford
fields.
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| Rod leads some of the walkers off through the Chantries.... |
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| A brass band practices on Shalford playing fields - must have known we were coming! |
From there we followed the river
back to the centre of Guildford where we had out last drink stop before heading
up to the cathedral - a chance to spend some time talking to passers by....
As we stopped at the foot of Stag Hill,
leading up to the cathedral, we were delighted to see family, friends and some
more of our Street Angel colleagues awaiting our return.
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| Our white van, a familiar and welcome sight along the way awaits our arrival at the bottom of Stag Hill |
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| Guildford Cathedral - just one more hill to climb! |
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| Greetings! |
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| Family and friends |
The
CTOG team led everyone up the main drive to the front of the cathedral, followed by our three drivers in the van,
where we were met by the Dean of Guildford, The Very Revd Dianna Gwilliams.
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| The intrepid hikers step out towards the final destination |
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| Triumphant approach |
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| Dianna Gwilliams, Dean of Guildford, rushes out to greet us! |
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| Dianna warmly welcomes the team on their homecoming |
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| Dianna joins a fully reunited team for a photo shoot |
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| Letter from Bishop Trevor to Guildford Street Angels |
Following a prayer by the Dean, who also presented cards to the team, Rod Boreham
said a few words about the experience of the walk and invited everyone to enjoy
a cup of tea and cake in the cathedral which had been very kindly arranged by the Dean.
.jpg) |
| Cards presented to the team by Dianna Gwilliams |
And that’s it!
CTOG14 has proved to be a tremendous team
success - fortunately no injuries or mishaps after having walked the equivalent of
4½ marathons in just over a week but lots of great memories to cherish and new friendships forged.
We would like to thank
all of our sponsors and supporters - we could not have done it without you and current predictions are that when we have collected in all our pledges, we will have met and hopefully exceeded the initial fundraising target of £7,500 which is a great achievement.
We hope you have enjoyed our daily blog (the story of the walk) written by the team as it
happened.
We enjoyed writing it and
thank you for supporting CTOG14 by reading it.
Remember, just £1 can make a huge difference in someone's life today - Street Angels are there to help anyone in need.....
Apart from raising much needed funds for Guildford
Street Angels, CTOG14 is also about raising awareness for all the teams of
Street Angels who work in the towns and cities throughout the whole of the UK. It is those Street Angels who are the real
heroes and we hope this blog has helped to raise awareness and highlight the invaluable work of Street
Angels.
The
CTOG14 team dedicate this blog to all Street Angels for their work and professionalism out on
the streets of the UK every week.
