THE DEVIL'S FUNGUS

I am taking some walkers through the Devil's Punchbowl on Saturday, so did a quick run through to check it was not too boggy.  It was interesting to see the old A3 again.  You may remember that the old A3 at this point was a terrible 2-lane road in the middle of a motorway/dual carriageway through route.  It was scenic.  But it was a notorious bottleneck.  Thanks to the Olympics, we finally have a tunnel (the longest land tunnel in Britain actually).  The old road was broken up and left to Nature.  Here it is now.

Such an improvement!  The whole hillside now runs down uninterrupted into the Devil's Punch Bowl.  This is a view across the Punch Bowl.

Down in the bowl itself, there are horses

- this one came to say hello -

Some useful waymarks, pointing out the footpaths . . .

and fungus.  I had never seen Fly Agaric grow like this before.

Here's a nice one up close.

 

These are great to get parties going.  But they are also highly poisonous with an as yet unidentified poison.  Which can be a bit of a downer at parties.  And these look so solid and distinct, you'd have thought they were easily identifiable.  But they're not in my identification book.  Anyone any idea?

There is also a small stream with what seemed a totally out of proportion bridge.  Until I saw this depth marker.

 

There are one or two houses in the Punch Bowl (including a Youth Hostel), but construction is now not permitted there, nor very close.  Most of the habitation is scattered around the perimeter and is well-established like this.

Or like this.

This is the Three Horseshoes, which you might remember from our Greensand Way walk.