Broad Oak to Tidebrook

The breakfast was perfect (full english with coffee), we don't have a proper map for this stretch of the trip so we book a taxi into Heath field to see if we can get one. Sadly the dedicated outdoor shop doesn't stock OS maps (the lady says she's considered it by most people use their phones) so we continue to Broad Oak where we leave the taxi (sorry about the mud!) and start our day of footpaths.

Initially we get lost, the path through from Wish end farm to Pioror's farm seems to have dissapeared to we retrace to the road and head up 5 mins to another path that should also lead to Prior's farm.

We head down through the field and again get lost, this time there are 2 horses we don't want to get too close to so we head into the next field but the path is actually on the otherside of the fence. We walk to the bottom of the field and carefully step over some bnarbed wire to get back on track, it looks like many other walkers have done the same thing based on the state of the fence!

The woods are right in front of us (Newick wood), we wind our way through it with the stream in sight, out into a field, up and through another wood and past a well hidden garden centre. Tanya spots a pig that she swears in plastic only to move 5 minutes later to everyone's surprise.

Out of the wood we then cut down through the fields east, the land owner appears to have changed the route of the path as we get lost yet again, we manage to find our way through to the gate exiting the field only to find it locked so have to clamber over. This kind of thing (removing arrows/signage, blocking/fencing paths and locking gates isn't super common but when you come across it it's pretty infuriating.

On our way again we head over teh road down to Little Pigstrood, over a couple more fields and up to a road, we follow the road north before it turns into a track and into beautiful lush green fields.

Here we have our lunch, sitting in the sun and on slightly muddy ground.

After half an hour we carry on up through the next field and into the first of three woods, Little Calem wood leads out into a cow field and up to another road, we choose to bypass the next wood as we don't want to make another mistake (due to light and tiredness) so we head along the road further and down through Winters farm.

We follow a stream and then head up through a lovely path past Sharnden Old Manor farm all the way up to Combe wood, since it's so hot we have to rest again.

Arthur walks up through Combe wood and then over Tide Brook, we continue up a storm damaged path to Lodge Hill farm, now on the road with great views back across the woods and fields. This magic hour really bringing out the greens and browns of the scenary.

The last push see's us taking a shortcut through some fields and then all the way up Riseden Road to our bed and breakfast Little Tidebrook Farm.

The owners made us feel incredibly welcome, they really looked after us after a long day, made us dinner, started the fire and let Arthur watch some cartoons on the big tv :)