Day 10: Benenden to Wadhurst

It's coming to something when an 18 mile day is a short one! More Wealden walking with woods, hop gardens and orchards.

Today's Mass was celebrated at the little Catholic Chapel at Benenden

A 5-mile morning took us to the Duke of Kent at Hartley, where the weather was indecisive (it looks bright but waterproofs are in evidence). Bill labelled the next slide "Flowers from Newman" so I assume these are young ladies from Cardinal Newman school sitting by the flowers.

Well, the weather made up its mind, and you see which way it went as we walked through the hopfields.

By Bedgebury it looks brighter (and this isn't one of Bill's winter planning pictures - there are leaves on the trees and the sheep are shorn).

Afternoon prayers at Christ Church, Kilndown

From here our route took us through Changley Wood to the then new Bewl Bridge Reservoir. There had obviously been some rerouting of footpaths associated with the construction, which left us with a fence across our path.

At Bewl Bridge we queued for ice cream at the visitor centre

but it was worth the wait

However, while we were resting, we heard that Earl Mountbatten had been murdered at Warrenpoint, which gave a sombre ending to the day. We still had 1½ hours to walk to Wadhurst Hall of Commemoration.