A walk in the High Weald, a castle and a Sussex Bonfire extravaganza.

Last year, 2017, I created an event which was to be a day walk followed by my local village bonfire celebrations. It was unfortunate that the weather for the walk was awful, but while this made for a rather unpleasant walk, it did not affect the bonfire activities. All who attended were amazed at the procession etc that they witnessed and all of us had a wonderfully social day.

For that reason, I have decided to run a similar event this year. A different route for the walk, but again a very special evening. All free, although of course the organisers are delighted for donations and all about 1.5 hours from central London. All the bonfire photos were were taken by me last year.

Each October and November, Sussex celebrates the bonfire season and for enthusiasts, there is a parade, grand bonfire and firework display most weekends during this time.

At this time of the year, the countryside is also very appealing as the remnants of the leaves finally fall and Winter looms. My route this year is quite different. This time we will be following the valley of the River Rother to Bodiam Castle, one of the most popular of the National Trust's very many properties. In the morning we will go up high above the valley and in the afternoon we will be right by the river.

When we reach Bodiam, we will be able to enter the grounds of the castle because the Sussex Border Path goes right through it, next to the moat in fact. We will leave the grounds at the other end, walk up a short hill to get some rather good views, then return to the castle and adjacent pub. 

After lunch, we will follow the river Rother for about 3.5 miles to the hamlet of Salehurst, which is basically a satellite of Robertsbridge, even though it was probably there first. We need to 'kill' about an hour and a half as we wait for the time between sundown and the bonfire celebrations starting. We shall do this in the small but very popular pub which is the Salehurst Halt.

We will leave when it is dark and we have to walk down an unlit country lane, hence the requirement of torches if you have one. The idea is that we will head towards the George Inn at the top of the village and find drinks and food while we await the start of the evening proceedings.

If you want to come to the evening without doing the walk you are perfectly free to do so, while those who just wish to walk can do this too, but you would miss out on so much. 

After the bonfire celebrations, both the George Inn and Robertsbridge Club will probably have live bands playing. For a small country village, this event is enormous and I really look forward to sharing it with you, fellow Outdoor Lads, again.