Читать книгу Walking Hampshire's Test Way. The long-distance trail and 15 day walks онлайн

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Exit the car park and cross the road to the ‘ribbon of chalk and flint’ streaming across the escarpment towards Combe Gibbet on Gallows Down. Go past the gibbet keeping to the rutted track for another 500 metres to reach a three-way track junction and several towering beech trees.

Bear left and continue slightly uphill to the end of the hedge where there is a public bridleway sign. Cross the dividing grassy area between two open fields to the right-hand side of the hedge in front and, as the broad field margin curves gradually to the left, descend towards a field gate and side gate.

Go through the side gate and bear left (past a Buttermere Estate wooden sign) staying alongside the boundary as it arcs gently around the top edge of the field to another field gate that opens on to an enclosed rutted farm track with distant views to the right. Continue along the track to a junction with a bridleway (left) and a stile (right) – where there is also another Buttermere Estate sign the other side of the fence. The track becomes more loosely surfaced as it descends very sharply alongside Combe Wood. At the bottom of the dip, turn directly left into Combe Wood through an opening next to a ‘fixed’ field gate ignoring the unmarked grassy path straight ahead.