Frant is a pretty village on the border of Kent and East Sussex – the town itself was known for smuggling in the 17th and 18th century.
This week I was riding solo, I would have taken the pup but it turns out Kent/East Sussex has some peculiar rules on this…
I parked up close to ‘The George Inn’ and headed past the Sunday drinkers and some pretty lovely vintage cars that were lining the road – from here I took a right and lost the path straight away before someone pointed me in the right direction and I started off on this weeks adventure.
The walk out of Frant starts in woodland, which had a tropical musk in the summer heat, the Bracken was particularly on point.
From the woodland I came out at a farm, headed through the yard and back into more woodland on the other side, which led me out onto a golf course (always nerve-racking) so I stole a golf ball to smuggle back as a souvenir – in tribute to the heritage of Frant.
After the golf course I crossed a train track and cut down into yet more woodland – I only walked past one other group over the whole day so the woodland was especially great for getting a hit of peacefulness.
Next up, I crossed a road and was confronted with a wall of nettles and thistles where the path was meant to be
Luckily there was a pretty good presence of dock leaves too, so I made it through with legs that were red, stinging and pleasantly soothed!
The final part of my walk took me past some old industrial buildings and through High woods. Banksy – the local graffiti artists – are not, but they had definitely mastered how to spray paint on stuff.
On the circle back around to Frant I spotted something pretty unique.
At the side of a quiet country road on the Kent/Sussex border, someone has taken the time to lay a 3 meter squared section of crazy paving, complete with a single plastic garden chair and a wet floor cone.
I miss the North sometimes.
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I’m doing a charity fundraising challenge in August to raise money for CALM – Campaign Against Living Miserably – a charity that is dedicated to providing support for men with mental health issues. To find out more, please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/conquerthetwatts and donate where possible.
Robin xx
Dan Q June 6, 2018
Every time I see you have an adventure in some remote rural area I think to myself: gosh, I’ll bet there’s a ton of awesome geocaching to be done there… I should make sure Robin knows anything he needs to know to give it a go next time he’s out and about. And this time, I thought to actually look at the maps.
Nope: turns out Frant somehow has fewer geocaches than it does pubs, sporting exactly one lonely geocache.
But my point still stands in the general case.
Elizabeth Varley June 7, 2018
What a beautiful peaceful walk – pity about the dogophobic notice. You do see some weird notices. At the place by the Sea of Galilee where the tourist guides say St. Peter swam ashore to where Jesus was cooking his friends a grilled fish breakfast, there are now notices of the same style as your dog excluder which proclaim in crossed-out pictures:
(a) No Swimming and
(b) No Barbecues.
Dan Q July 11, 2018
@Elizabeth Varley: I guess you’re expected to walk across the water?
Elizabeth Varley July 13, 2018
And call down fire from heaven to cook the fish, no doubt.