Day 2, The Milbury to The Sustainability Centre (East Meon??)

 Sorry for the delay in posting, no network.

A very disturbed night, the road was noisy even though its just a lane, boy racers! Then an owl sat on top of my tent for half the night. Well okay it seemed like it was on my tent, so noisy. Today looked promising at dawn but then it did hard drizzle,

But back to last night. They were super welcoming at the pub, the landlords are in the process of moving back from France. I got set up in the most muddled way possible, i should have practised at home, in 10 months I had forgotten the best and most efficient way to set up my tent. Luckily no-one was watching and it wasn't raining or blowing a hoolie. Hopefully I'll do better next time.

I had a 'nice' cup of ginger tea, ate noodles, then sat in the pub with a zero beer, interesting to watch and listen to the regulars, I think its a conservative area! I watched a lady drink a whole bottle of wine in about 30 minutes then she was drinking Jaffa Cake gin 😳 she walked home across the field where I was camping, and trying to sleep, she was singing loudly.

So today started misty, then drizzly the had a bit of a pour down and then it was sunny then misty drizzle. I did see the Solent and the Isle of Wight from Old Winchester Hill so the weather wasn't all bad.

A meandering walk over Beacon Hill (201metres) past the beacon, then I took the cycle route, down a lane to Exton to avoid the floods. Exton was a cute village, it was too early for coffee at the pub, so I sat on the verge like a homeless person and ate my Snickers bar. Then up and over Winchester Hill (198m) there were benches! I had lunch in the nature reserve car park and managrd to dry out my tent a bit, then amazing I found Alan's cafe van, so had a latte with a view, then down for 15 mins to Meon Springs where there was an open cafe, hot chocolate and cake, well it would have been rude not to. Am writing this sat in the cafe by the wood burner with about 4 kms to go, 2 big ups and downs!

And then there was more mud and water unavoidable so had to paddle through. The Sustainability Centre was a bit run down, its where Rach and Mike had their UK reception (I may have already said that, its 3 days later)

I was the only one camping so chose my spot with care avoiding the muddy wet bits. Discovered the showers weren't turned on (did I say I was muddy?) went up to the hostel to moan, the guy was obviously having a day like mine, no I couldn't use the hostel shower and I got a bargain rate for the night (15pounds) and I was told there weren't showers and he shut the door. 🤯🤯 I wrote a very reasonable email to them saying they should say there aren't showers. Had a response the next morning full of apologies, refunding some money and saying please come and use the hostel showers if I was still on site, obviously I wasn't!

The rain started in the evening and continued but I was warm and cosy.