The South Downs and Brighton were the sort of places you'd like to visit... if it was just a little warmer. Under an ominous sky, we were turned back on a planned walk along the South Down Way near the Jack and Jill windmills by horizontal rain.
OK, we should have just turned around and put on rain gear, but we decided to go to the pub instead... as you do.

And a lovely pub it was - the Dog and Shepherd. Geoff, the publican said we could stay in the car park, next to the garden with a stream gurgling all night.

The 6 mi walk the next morning up onto the Downs was a bit of a trudge with limited visibility and a cold wind, so we headed into Brighton to explore. Out on Brighton pier, the Brits proved to be a sturdy lot. The cold wind did not deter families and packs of teenagers from having a fun day out. We arrived back in the Nat Park at the remote Devils Dyke car park at dusk.

The walkers cars left one by one, and we popped the top to settle in for the night. Then the strange visits began... cars would drive in, stay only for a minute and leave. We began to recognise some - a flash BMW and a big brown van. All men and they sat in their cars and did not greet each other. So we went to bed, and listened to the comings and goings until midnight when Billy climbed down to try to figure out what was going on. He was pretty spooked when he looked out the window and saw a huge man looking in.... and then another man at the other window! He described zombie like men all milling around the car... ARG! "Toni hand me my clothes!" So we got out of there in a hurry. Not sure what we were witness to, but it was not a cool place to camp wild. We were both pretty shaken and didn't get much sleep when we found a safe pub carpark. Sorry, no photos of the scene, but I'm not sure we would have gotten out alive had we taken their pictures!


I enjoyed telling Adam Tinkoff all about it as we ran together again (without Nigel, again!) around Hyde Park, where Adam seems quite at home.