We got there at last! Dog Heaven. Challock Forest - about 5 square kms of English broad leaved forest. Historically a Royal deer-hunting forest and now owned by the Forestry Commission, it's mainly down to sweet chestnut coppice, although there are big tracts too of beech, larch, corsican pine and other stuff. There are ggod hard tracks all around and narrower muddier footpaths too. There are squirrels, pheasants and we reckon about 200 very dark-phase fallow deer.
Dad had the day off and, amazingkly after the gales and rain last night, the morning was sunny, warm and almost windless, certainly windless under the trees anyway. So we dropped Mum off at work (Poor Mum!) and headed for Challock. You can see from the pics , it was very sloppy underfoot, so we rapidly became "West Highland Black-Bellied Terriers", with our little majorette boots of shiny black. We are all let straight off the lead in Challock, so we can race about like lunatics.
We even saw some of the fallow deer - a small group of does, and led by Meggie, we tried to give chase, but deer are fast and long legged, and built for spronging through knee high brambles and bracken. Westies (especially pups) are only 4 inches long in the leg dept and built more for your mown lawns and shagpile carpet, so "gave chase" is a rather humorous optimistic description! Dad soon called us back
Fantastic place! We all love it, and it's Dad's absolute favourite dogwalk place. We'd reccommend it to anyone who lives in the Ashford / Sittingbourne / Charing area
Exhausted
Deefer
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