Reporting from the Downs Again- Day 5 | Chanctonbury

Day 5 - Plummy Carats Ring & Three Wild Deer

The legs complained. Last four days had been quite an endurance test albeit it's only zone-2 for them. So, today we started with a belly exercise instead. We sat down with a big plate of cooked English breakfast in the Carats cafe at the Shoreham harbour and let the gut do its digestion work!

Carat's English Breakfast

The view was just perfect. We had a table right in the front facing the blue sea. Today the sea was calm. The starlings here were quite bold. They flew right inside the café, taking their pick from the leftovers. A couple at our next table tried feeding a slice of carrot to one of the birds. It twitched its snobbish beak and flew to the next table for some free chicken.

Sparkling Blue...

Walking seems quite a task when you have a tummy full of bacon and hash browns. But it was a beautiful day that demanded to be enjoyed. So, we took a closer look at the wind turbines at the harbour, pottered around the lock gate for a while and then headed to the Chanctonbury Ring. The history of this place goes back to the 1700s of which I mentioned in my book and won’t go into the details here again. But just that this hill is very unique and iconic with its clump of trees at the top planted in the 18th century.

Can you see the wind farm in the horizon?

Climbing up along the arrays of poppy and long grass, we had an incredible view of the Brighton wind farms on the seafront behind us and the neatly farmed, tiled lands on our either side. We stopped to moo at a cow which was gushing out excretory products from his back side with a tremendous force whilst putting on the most oblivious face!

The path lined up with Poppies

Suddenly a movement caught our eyes. We looked up and just in the next section of the valley, three deer appeared ! They were out in the field, free and perky. They checked out their surroundings with swift neck and head swings, their ears alert to catch any suspicious sounds. We watched them breathless as they wandered around in their most natural setting. They seemed to have a little meeting amongst themselves and decided to head towards the path. Then, they ran up to the path, paused, checked left, checked right and then ran at top speed into the next field for their further rendezvous.

From where we saw the deer!

We climbed up to the big mound with a crop of trees on the top. As we walked amongst the tall trees planted some hundreds of years back, I tried to create a spooky vibe but failed. I was sure there used to be a special tree here with gnarly roots but couldn't find it. Of course, I was laughed at and accused of being hallucinated. I shrugged it off and stretched my legs in the long grass. We stayed there eating juicy plums and doing absolutely nothing. What a luxury!

View from the Top

Next, we visited Bramber church and wished to say hello to Mr. Careless. Well, there was a particular headstone in the Bramber churchyard belonging to a person named - Careless. Now, I am not hallucinated as this was a very celebrated find of ours, years back. But sadly and very shockingly, that headstone was nowhere to be found now! Yep, we checked, quite a few times to be sure but Mr. Careless (or, Mr. Couldn't Careless as we used to refer) was gone! Very disappointed, we walked around the old stone walled motte and bailey castle of Bramber and appreciated the fact that those castle ruins still stood erect, unlike the headstone!

To call it a night, we had spicy and yummy veggie noodles for dinner and checked out lots of Jamie Brown dance moves! More to follow the next day. Get up now..!