Thursday 28 December 2017

The Red Lion, Chalton to the George at Finchdean and back: 5.08 miles - 11,037 steps

This has been a poor walking month: on the 5th I spent the day in London with Graham and whilst crossing the road tore a muscle in my left calf - it was very painful and I was hubbling around for a week. The Christmas preparation caught up with us and I never seemed to have a spare day.

Finally, just after Christmas, Liz's sister Chris suggested that she and her husband Ed and us walked a bit of the Sussex Border Path, which they are doing, bit by bit. One section they hadn't done was from Cahlton to Finchdean and since this is my favourite section of my favourite walk - Rowland's Castle to Petersfield - we agreed.

It was very cold but abeautiful day - blue skies and no wind. I know this walk well and it was wonderful to see the views in winter - there were patches of snow on the ground and frost in the shadows. We also learned some new geography - I spotted what I thought were hail-stones across a field, to be told by our two resident geographers (Chris and Ed) that they were pipkrakes - see the photographs below!

Since I often walk alone it was good to have some company and also the opportunity of photographs with me in them!

Click on the photographs to see a larger image and use the arrows at the left and right of the larger images to scroll through them:

Needle ice requires a flowing form of water underneath the surface, from that point it comes into contact with air that is below freezing. This area of the process usually occurs at night when temperature peaks its low point. From then on, it produces a needle like structure as we know as “Needle Ice”.

The ice needles are typically a few centimetres long. While growing, they may lift or push away small soil particles. On sloped surfaces, needle ice may be a factor contributing to soil creep

Origin of name:1930s; earliest use found in Geographical Journal. From Swedish pipkrake from pipa + krake, regional variant of klake frozen mud, ice-encrusted path, cognate with Old Icelandic klaki hard-frozen ground, Norwegian klake crust of ice, Danish klage hard-frozen ground (now regional), further etymology uncertain.