It's excellent that LDWA events are back up and running post-Covid! The Sevenoaks Circular is an event I've wanted to do for a few years now, and it was worth the wait. Fantastic route, great hospitality, friendly and encouraging, five amazing checkpoints, and the Kent group of the LDWA had even arranged beautiful weather for the day.
The event started and finished at West Heath School in Sevenoaks, which was quite a spectacular starting location indeed, and even had chandeliers in the toilets.
I did the 32 mile route with Andrew, which was an anticlockwise loop, going to the north of Sevenoakes. My Mum, Dad, Auntie Nicky and my cousin Sammy were all there too, doing the 22 mile loop. It was great to all meet up at the start, have tea and biscuits together in the banqueting hall, and all set off together into the sunshine at around 09:00.
The first 6 miles to checkpoint 1 at Heaverham wound through a nice valley, and past Knole House...
...and a golf course where we saw some deer, and there was another running race on, and the golfers were all very polite, so we made it through without any gold ball incidents.
Checkpoint 1 was outdoors at Heaverham and was filled with peanuts, chocolate bars and bananas. From here, it was 4 miles to the next checkpoint, starting off through the very beautiful St Clere Estate.
Then, there was a little section along the North Downs Way, before passing through a caravan park, after which we met two elderly ladies crossing a stile, who were concerned there may not be enough refreshment opportunities on the run, so advised us that there was a pub in their village. Happily, this happened to be the next stop (Stanstead), but the checkpoint in the village hall was so good (it had scones!) that no pub was needed.
From there, it was up some fields, through the London Golf Club, through West Kingsdown (close to Brands Hatch Circuit), and then up to the next checkpoint at Eynsford, the most northerly point of the route. Refuelled with some peanuts and grapes, then it was off through Eynsford village and across the River Darent. Then we picked up the Darent Valley Path, and continued on this uphill.
At the top the path levelled off, and running along, we spotted a huge bird circling in the sky above. I've never seen a bird so enormous before. We stopped to watch it. Turns out, it was a white tailed eagle! A guy walking behind us caught up, who professed to know nothing about birds, but I suspect was being modest, as he sounded suspiciously like an ornithologist from what I was hearing. Which was very handy!
Nice bit of downhill, past Lullingstone Castle and a pretty path through some woods by the River Darent, then some uphills, woods, and many flowers to admire.
Made it to CP 4, at Shoreham Village Hall, where who should be there, but our family gang! Reunited, we all had a nice sit down with a cup of tea and sandwiches, and caught up on each others adventures so far that day.
Then it was on through Shoreham Village (where the pub was advertising a pie and a pint for £89.50, which seems expensive, even for round here). Shoreham is very pretty, but I've no idea how anyone gets around it, tiny villages aren't made for cars. So slow was the progress of cars through the winding streets, that I even beat a supercar (Aston Martin, but no James Bond) to the vineyard at the end of the village, which is my favourite way to arrive at vineyards.
Through a very lovely church yard, then the route had a few miles which seemed nice and flat, so we got some good paced miles in. Down towards Dunton Green, and running past a pub, a man called out that " you should be coming in here instead!" which, to be fair, was a very good point.
CP5 was an outdoor checkpoint at Chipstead, where we ran into Kasia and Ellen and had a good catch up! The last section was 4.4 miles and included the only part where we got momentarily lost, as we had lost concentration due to chatting. It also involved a sneaky line on the route description, which casually mentioned almost a mile uphill through a forest. But at the top, ran into Davo and Bryan, so that cheered up the long haul up the hill! Then ran into Lisa a bit further on, and then it was back to the school and the finish.
Hot food (bean stew and rolls), hot drinks and cakes awaited, so spent a nice time catching up on lost calories, and with many people. Family gang all arrived back safe and in triumph, and so yet more tea and chats were partaken of, until we all had to head off on our sperate ways....
Such a brilliant day, thank you Kent LDWA and all the many volunteers for such an excellent event, a beautiful route, checkpoints full of gustatory delights, and amazing weather! I also loved following a route description again, I've missed them.
No comments:
Post a Comment