Today was made more exciting with my friend James joining us. Our last hike together was last century in Ecuador, so it was good to catch up! We started the day with the bus from Cheltenham to Toddington. I’m liking how close our apartment is to the bus stops! It was a smooth, uneventful ~1 hour ride, and we were hiking by 10 am.
To avoid repeating yesterday’s near-death experiences walking along a narrow main road, I found a set of paths that met up with the Cotswold Way a bit south of where we had left it. The paths followed the railway line at first, and we were treated to a steam train passing by, though the engine was the wrong way around!
It took about an hour of walking to rejoin the Cotswold Way, but it was a pleasant change from yesterday.
We enjoyed some fine views of Winchcombe as we approached and entered it, but were not overly impressed by the town. That it is a “town” rather than a village might have made the difference. It was formerly the capital of Mercia and has links to King Ethelred from the 10th century.
While the town was a little underwhelming, we enjoyed some tea, scone, and cake at a quirky tea room that was in the back of an antique shop which had the most marvelous garden. Unfortunately, the garden meant many wasps were attracted to our scone’s jam, but they stayed away from us.
Winchcombe was our planned end-point for today and starting point tomorrow. However, as we had walked only four miles, we decided to add on a loop up to Belas Knap Longbarrow. As we left Winchcombe, we were interested in looking at Sudeley Castle. We made it to the entrance to the grounds, but gave up as it was going to be a long walk out of our way, and we wouldn’t see much without paying a high entrance fee. It’s more of a stately home than a castle.
It was a long climb up the hill to Belas Knap. it is a mound, known as a longbarrow, believed to have been used as a burial ground around 3000 BC. Entrances have been restored. While there wasn’t much to see, it was a suitable turning point for our walk back down the hill to Winchcombe.
We had been dodging rain clouds all day. While our luck finally ran out, we still had some as the rain came while we were walking in the woods, which helped prevent us getting too wet.
The final mile was through farmland with various obstacles.
We made it to the bus stop with about 10 minutes to spare, though there is an hourly service from Winchcombe to Cheltenham. We were happy to get back earlier today at about 4pm. While in our room, it started raining heavily which we enjoyed listening to under our glass ceiling.
Today’s Relive Videos:
First Half: https://www.relive.cc/view/vdvmXerpjxq
Second Half: https://www.relive.cc/view/veqzoR2RPBv
Today’s stats:
I accidentally stopped my watch in Winchcombe, and missed some of our walking. Today was about 11 miles with 1150ft of climbing with a little under 5 hours of walking. It was another fine day, made even better with James joining us and without the weather spoiling it.
The Adventures of the Cajunlimeys 