The weather turned out as forecast, giving us a sunny mild morning. Heading off into the park, we passed an area of the woods that is being coppiced, where Ken gave us a quick explanation of why and how. After another mile, we reached a viewpoint in Updown Wood that gave us a spectacular view over the Mole Valley to Box Hill. Further on we passed the sawmill which produces furniture from the park's trees, and also produces charcoal. They were in the middle of a charcoal-burning session - a quick stop to chat to the head charcoal man left us a lot wiser but also a lot smellier, as the dense charcoal smoke drifted all around us! It was reassuring to know that it was 99% steam but the other 1% was certainly very stinky!!
We then ran down to the River Mole - which left us a long uphill run back to the park, where we saw swallows and chiff chaffs to show that spring really had arrived, plus red kites and buzzards, before getting to our finish at the tearooms
Next month we have somewhere just as nice planned for you, so we hope you'll put May 12th in your diaries:
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