Are We Nearly There Yet?

I have been rather remiss in not getting updates on the sponsored walk for the Broadway station appeal up on this blog, I'm afraid a variety of events, including a lack of reliable internet access have conspired against me.  So where are we in the sponsored walk along the Cotswold Way in aid of the Broadway Station appeal? 

Well in terms of miles done, we're nearly there, Tina and I have made it as far north as Wood Stanway (just a few fields away from Toddington) with the stretch from Wood Stanway to Chipping Campden left for Friday and then the return from Chipping Campden to Toddington on Sunday.  I'm afraid that I still have very limited internet access, so this update will be entirely text based with no photos to relieve the monotony. I'll upload the photos to Photobucket when I return to civilisation for anybody who might be foolish enough to want to go and look.

 
Day 1, Bath to Cold Ashton (10.5 miles)

Weather:  Wall to wall sunshine

Tina and I started early Friday afternoon at Bath Green Park station.  Rather touchingly, Chris, one of the GWSR's other volunteers had come along (and no he doesn't live anywhere near Bath) to see us off on our way. He even brought us both a cup of tea to refresh us before we set off.
 
Bath Abbey is the official start of the Cotswold Way, and only a few hundred yards from Bath Green Park station.  Sadly of course, the trains run no more from Bath along the famous  Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway.

The "Cotswold Way" signs are quite prolific elsewhere along the route, but in central Bath they are all but non-existant.  We had maybe covered the first mile before we spotted the first one.  The only time that I have needed to break out the OS maps so far was in Bath.  The compass and GPS have remained unused.

Once outside Bath and in open country, we arrived at Lansdown Hill, which turns out to have been the scene of a battle during the English civil war (curious name, wars are anything but civilised affairs). Tina read the plaque describing the event, so you'd best ask her who won.

My guide book to the Cotswold Way sneakily includes a few pages of pictures of common flowers that you might see, including three different kinds of orchids (early purple, spotted and pyramidal if you must know), so far, I haven't spotted any of them


 
Day 2, Cold Ashton to Hawksbury Upton (14 miles)

Weather:  Hot enough to melt brass monkeys

Not content with berating me for my woeful lack of knowledge on all things botanical, Tina has also taken it upon herself to dispense history lessons at various points along the route where something that she considered important might have happened a long time ago. High on the list of such things are haunted houses, one of which happened to be in Cold Ashton. I'm pleased to report that there were no signs of paranormal activities whilst we passed through.

If one thing sticks in my mind from this walk, it was all the butterflies, there seemed to be no end of them. 

Today's route took us past the Dyrham Park National Trust property, to Tormarton, Dodington Park, Old Sodbury and Little Sodbury (which has a fine hill fort above it), before passing through Horton (yet another hill fort) and eventually into Hawkesbury Upton.  The views out across to the river Severn and the Brecon hills beyond were astounding in several places.
 
The heat was relentless and this was probably the toughest day's walking so far, Tina was even heard to say "I think I've bitten off more than I can chew" along with the more usual "My legs are killing me".

 
Day 3, Hawkesbury Upton to Dursley (14.5 miles)

Weather:  Phew, what a scorcher!

We started off passing by a tall memorial to General Lord Robert Somerset.  I have no idea why there was a memorial to him, but I'm guessing that it wasn't anything to do with services to geography as we were well into Gloucestershire and far from Somerset. 

As we approached Wotton-Under-Edge, we were adopted by a large lost dog of indeterminate breed.  It came bounding up to us as we passed a farm, so we initially thought that it was a farm dog and would soon return whence it came, but no, it stuck with us for about a mile.  Not having the slightest idea what to do with a lost dog, or who to report it to, we were quite relieved when it spotted a young lad a little way off who was out walking two dogs of his own and bounded off to make friends with them.

One of the highlights for me was Tyndale Monument near North Nibley.  It's the one that is very obvious as you drive past on the M5.  It has a fine spiral staircase inside, with 121 steps and is well worth the climb to get to the top.

Before dropping down to Dursley, the route takes a tour around Stinchcombe Hill, which again commands fine views across Gloucestershire to the river Severn and the Brecon Hills beyond.

 
Day 4, Dursley to Haresfield Beacon (nominally 10.5 miles)

Weather: Hotter than July.

The good news was that Derek had decided to join us for this section, and sure enough, when we arrived at the car park in Dursley, there he was, rummaging around in the boot of his car.  It turned out that he was rummaging around in the boot of his car, because he had lost his car keys.  We spent 15 minutes turning his car inside out trying to find his keys, I eventually spotted them dangling from the lock of the boot of his car.

If you asked me to choose a favourite day from the walk so far, this would probably be it, the views were simply stunning from so many different places along the way.  We passed through two fields containing bulls, but I wasn't at all concerned about that, because Derek was wearing a red top, so they'd chase him in preference to me (ok, I know bulls are colour blind, but why let that spoil a good story?).

The route splits in two a little south of Stonehouse, there is a "direct route" and a "scenic route", which goes over Selsley Common.  The "scenic route" adds around two miles to the walk. Convinced that if I offered them the choice, Tina and Derek would opt for the direct route, I foolishly let them decide which way we should go.  Tina deferred to Derek, Derek decided on the "scenic route".  The problem with that was that our ten mile walk now became a twelve mile walk. It was scenic, but of course quite hilly, and as a group, we didn't tackle the hills at any great pace, so by the end, it took us rather longer than anticipated to cover the distance.  Derek and Tina were both rather worn out by the end, so were my ears.

 
Day 5, Haresfield Beacon to Birdlip (14 miles)

Weather: Far too hot for comfort.

The day starts well, with fine views from Haresfield Beacon, but much of this walk was just wandering through a tunnel of trees.  That did help to keep it all pleasantly cool, but once Haresfield Beacon was behind us, we had none of the fine views over Gloucestershire that the previous days had provided.  A welcome relief was the delightful village of Painswick, shortly before reaching which we passed a stone set in a field purporting to be the half way marker, in spite of the fact that it was brazenly telling us that we had 47 miles left to Chipping Campden whilst people going the other way had 55 miles to go to Bath.  The route took us over Cooper's Hill, famed for its cheese rolling events.  Having neglected to bring a cheese, we couldn't chase one down the hill, which was probably a good thing.

 
Day 6, Birdlip to Cleeve Hill (13.5 miles)

Weather: Who says there's no such thing as global warming?

The start was good, with fine views from Barrow Wake and Crickley Hill. The next stop was Leckhampton Hill, with excellent views over Cheltenham to Cleeve Hill.

We were going to be taking a bit of a circuitous route, but Cleeve Hill in the distance was our destination for the day. Tina isn't a big fan of hills, and getting her up Cleeve Hill was always going to be a bit of a challenge.  It took a lot of Licorice Allsorts to eventually coax her to the top, but it was worth it for the views.  Sadly we got up there too late to see any of the trains running in or out of Cheltenham Race Course station, but we could clearly see where the station was from up there.

 
Day 7, Cleeve Hill to Wood Stanway (13.5 miles)

Weather: hot, a bit cloudy, even had a precious few drops of rain near the end.

Well here we are, 7 days in and I haven't seen a sign of Julia Bradbury yet, I shall write to the BBC and complain.

The route took us from Cleeve Hill to Postlip, then up to Belas Knap long barrow, before winding down to Winchcombe where we stopped for lunch. Suitably refreshed, it was a windy route past Hailes Abbey, then up to Beckbury Camp (I've seen more hill forts in the last week than you could shake a stick at) before a gentle descent (including a light shower of rain, of at most 1 minutes duration), before arriving in Wood Stanway.  Being so close to the railway at this point, we saw 4270 in the distance near Winchcombe.  Derek was rostered as fireman, so he had clearly recovered from the ordeal of walking with us a few days before.

 
I was going to sign off at this point with the usual stuff about how to sponsor us for the Broadway Station appeal, but there is other steam loco dept news that is far too good to save until later.  On Tuesday, Dan passed out as a fireman. Needless to say, he's chuffed to bits. Congratulations Dan, a very well deserved promotion.  Dan had been primed to send me a photo of himself shoveling a torn up L plate into the firebox, but instead he sent me one of him shaking hands with Inspector Irving who passed him out.  I'll upload the photo here as soon as I get to a usable internet connection again.

Dan will hopefully be joining us on Sunday for the final walk from Chipping Campden back to Toddington, the link to how to sponsor us will be at the end of the previous blog post, I can't get enough life out of this painfully slow interweb connection to go back and find it for you.