Bramber to the Newmarket Inn (A27 west of Lewes)

We knew that today's walk would be the longest of the holiday, but we hadn't expected it to be as long as it was! Short diversions to the shops and to see the Clayton windmills added to the distance slightly, as did the convoluted route to get us safely across the A27 and back to the Newmarket Inn. However, the basic route was also longer than Richard's measurement predicted; in contrast to the use of new technology when we are actually walking, when planning a route he uses the old-fashioned technique of a piece of string on a paper map, and is usually spot on. However, we managed the walk and we enjoyed it! There were spots of rain from time to time, and the sun peeped out very occasionally, but the most significant feature of the weather was the cold wind. The visibility wasn't great for photographs (and the large lens of my camera means it is very difficult to use when there are spots of rain in the wind) but it was delightfully atmospheric walking.

Breakfast at the Castle Inn Hotel in Bramber was a bit chaotic, with tea and coffee in one place, cereals in another and the toaster in yet another - and for some reason porridge counted as a "cooked breakfast" which caused upset for one of the Americans, who wanted porridge and a poached egg...However we had Eggs Benedict which was very pleasant (and no problem!) and we left the hotel at about 8.30am. We turned right and walked through Bramber, past the 15th Century timber-framed St Mary's House then over the River Adur and so into Upper Beeding. Towards the far end of Upper Beeding we turned onto a side street which led towards a group of shops including "Nisa", where we bought provisions for lunch today and tomorrow. We returned to the route of the Monarch's Way and followed it out of Upper Beeding, along the A2037 and then up a rutted track with climbed steadily with views opening up behind us. We passed a "no vehicles apart for access" sign and shortly afterwards a 4x4 came bumping up the track - this turned into something of a theme of the morning!

At the top of the hill there were views back through the mist to Lancing College Chapel, with some dog-walkers heading back along the route of the South Downs Way, which we joined here. We continued to climb, alongside a road, past work going on to bring power cables from an offshore wind farm (probably the wind farm that we'd seen from time to time) and up to the Truleigh Hill Youth Hostel, a group of houses and the Truleigh Hill radio masts. The track in this section was again marked "no vehicles apart from for access" but we were passed by a veritable procession of vehicles; most odd! There were two walkers in the distance in front of us and we wondered if they were our friends the Americans from a couple of days ago (though this wouldn't have made sense; they should have been a day behind us now).

We continued along an undulating route with good views over Fulking Escarpment and, for the first time of many today, two gliders came whooshing past overhead. We were walking along the edge of the escarpment, with Edburton and then Fulking below us.

We reached the Devil's Dyke Estate, with Devil's Dyke itself ("Britain's largest single coombe of chalk karst; a steep dry valley which covers 183 acres of downland") to the north. The guidebook, from which I took the quote above, goes on to describe the Iron Age fort on the summit of the Dyke and the chalkland vegetation including orchids, wild thyme, horseshoe vetch and birdsfort trefoil; however what I remember of the area from today was gorse and bluebells, including some bluebells that were actually pink and white! We met a couple of walkers who asked if the hotel was open. Hotel, what hotel?! Slightly further on we met the walkers who we had confused with the American couple earlier; it was actually two men who are walking the South Downs Way in short stages and they reported that they had diverted to the hotel in question for a cup of coffee, only to discover that they didn't open until midday. It was only shortly after 11am!

We were walking at around the same speed as the two men, playing "leapfrog" as you do in these circumstances, and when we passed them close to the signpost that indicated that we'd walked 67 miles on the South Downs Way from Winchester, with just 33 miles to go to Eastbourne, they told us to look out for the donkey wheel at Saddlescombe. However, first of all we passed the Hiker's Rest Cafe - guess what; it's closed on Wednesdays. Saddlescombe has been a working farm since the Domesday Book and belonged to the Knights Templar for around 100 years; it's now owned by the National Trust. There was a rather rickety stile leading to a path towards the donkey wheel; the two men decided not to bother, but we went over the stile and closer to the attractive wooden building housing the wheel, thus letting the two men get ahead of us. We eventually followed them up a wooded hill and onto West Hill.

From here we had a good view down to Pyecombe, being well described as "wedged" between the A23 and the A273. We descended to Pyecombe, which involved a short detour to the north to reach a bridge over the A23. Pyecombe was badly hit by the plague and most of the population relocated half a mile down the road in 1603, but it was the old part we walked through, stopping for lunch sitting on a rather rickety bench, surrounded by bluebells, in front on the lovely Norman Church.

We continued through Pyecombe and over the A273, then up a slope onto Pyecombe Golf Club. The Clayton Windmills were to the north, on the escarpment edge, and we took a left hand turn towards them. We reached a track with the option to turn left or right - left towards the windmills or right on the route of the South Downs Way. We decided to take the left-hand option and, by turning right again off the track then following round in a loop back to it, we managed to complete a circuit round the two windmills which are known as Jack and Jill. Jack is now a private residence, and doesn't even have sails; a bit disappointing really. However we can't really talk - Denver Windmill, just down the road from our house in Norfolk, has also lost its sails and is in a pretty sorry state at present.

We completed our circuit around the windmills and continued along the track to the east. I have walked this way before, on a Saturday morning between two weeks at an Open University residential school based at Sussex University; on that occasion, I parked at Ditchling Beacon and walked nearly to the windmills and back and I remember really enjoying the walk. Initially this section of today's walk didn't live up to my recollection of it (it was a rather boring track) but we emerged onto delightful open downs, walking on grass (much softer on the feet) and passing a dew pond and lots of sheep! There doesn't seem to be a beacon at Ditchling Beacon any more, but the car park is still there. I was looking forward to a break and to change my socks, but there was nowhere obvious to stop in the carpark. Thankfully there was a stone on which to sit opposite the car park.

Somewhat refreshed, we continued on the escarpment edge. It was lovely walking, though the weather wasn't great; most of all my memory is that it felt cold, but it was atmospheric and, amazingly, the gliders came whoosing past again (I presume they'd landed and taken off again, but I don't know). After passing above Plumpton College we came to a multi-way path junction just before Blackcap. The South Downs Way has a marked change of direction here, heading to the south away from the escarpment, but before following it, I wandered towards the edge for one last view over the flatter ground to the north.

Then we were off on the final section of today's walk, over undulating downland. The route zig-zagged, first to the south-west, then to the south-east over Balmer Down, then to the south-west again. We had some rain and an encounter with two lambs on the "wrong" side of a fence. As always it was impossible to encourage them to a place where they could return to their mother - stupid creatures! - though one got the message eventually and hopefully the other one followed after we moved on. In the distance there was a structure that we were initially unable to identify - might it be a windmill? There was no windmill shown on the map, but in the evening a little research led to the discovery that this was the reconstructed 6-sail Ashcombe Windmill near "Kingston near Lewes". The reconstruction obtained planning permission in 2007 and the work was completed between 2009 and 2015, so why no mention on a map with a copyright of 2015? Come on, Ordnance Survey!

We reached the delightful Bunkershill Plantation and climbed quite steeply through the wood, then out the other side for a steady descent to the A27 which we could see beneath us. It was rush hour, so the road was very busy - Richard was concerned about our means of crossing the road; I knew there was a bridge! The hamlet of Falmer and the University of Sussex are only about a mile to the west of Housedean Farm, the point on the A27 we were descending towards, with Brighton University's Falmer Campus and the relatively recent Amex Stadium on the other side of the road. I know the Sussex Campus quite well, having been here for Open University residential school many times (now, sadly, in the past) as well as for other visits; I have memories of running right round the campus looking for a missing coach!

Returning to the present, our route over the A27 and then back to the Newmarket Inn (which is on the south side of the A27, about half a mile closer to Lewes than Housedean Farm) was somewhat convoluted, but you definitely wouldn't have wanted to walk across or along the busy dual carriageway. We reached the A27 at a sliproad which took us past Housedean Farm (which has a campsite should you be interested) then along to the bridge mentioned above. There was a sign saying something like "no access to the A27", but that didn't stop a few cars coming over the bridge and back to the A27 (perhaps because of the queue on the east-bound carriageway); or perhaps they were really all local residents. On the other side of the A27 we took a track alongside the railway, then we passed under the railway and continued on the other side of it. At a belt of trees we turned right, away from the A27 and the railway, feeling we were back on the South Downs Way proper - but we weren't going far! Just past the trees we parted company with the South Downs Way we turned left onto another grassy track which took us back under the railway, through a gate, past a couple of cottages and so to the Newmarket Inn next to what has once been a petrol station.

We didn't have great expectations of the Newmarket Inn, but it is very close to the route of the South Downs Way so we had booked it for its convenience. We wondered if it would be like the Knowesgate Inn (now the Countryside Express Hotel ) last year and in that both were real curate's eggs, that turned out to be true. Again it's a slightly tatty looking place, but we were shown to a comfortable and spacious ground floor room (we learnt later that we had been put in one of the rooms that has been updated, so perhaps they are not all so good), and the amazing thing was that the noise from the road was not intrusive. The biggest problem was the limited choice of food in the evening, and length of time we had to wait for it; and ....when the food did arrive, it turned out that they'd misheard the order and only produced one portion of chicken burger and chips. After nearly 18 miles of walking today, that was a low point! However, when we realised that the new managers had only been there one day, and all the previous staff had left, we had a lot of sympathy. They were quite busy and simply overwhelmed, and whilst the woman had worked in catering all her life, she was stuck in the kitchen cooking so had to rely on her husband to do everything else, and his slight cluelessness can easily be attributed to lack of experience and extreme tiredness. They are a lovely couple, also looking after a young child, and above all we felt sorry for them. We decided not to wait another hour for another chicken burger, but they quickly produced more chips and wouldn't take money for our meals. We used the waiting time to talk to an American couple who are walking the South Downs Way in the opposite direction and who were unsure of the route from the Newmarket Inn to the path.

Following leg