Ordinarily, the Airbnb we were staying at did not provide breakfast, but Jessica had asked if there was anything she could leave for us, since we were walking and didn’t have access to buy things beforehand. Ken had suggested croissants and fruit, and so that is what we had for breakfast. We were fairly leisurely packing and doing dishes, and then the host’s friend arrived to clean at 10:00 (the host was away during our stay, but went above and beyond in leaving us breakfast things, and in taking photos and sending detailed instructions so that we could find the place). We were done by 10:15, and since we had already walked one way from Wotton to our B&B, we were free to take the bus uphill into Wotton to start our walk, so we did.
We got some water at Tesco, and then Ken
spied a bakery and we each enjoyed a white chocolate raspberry muffin from
there. After seeing several walkers in town, we headed uphill on a path which
also had walkers coming down it. Should we bother mentioning that it was
raining?
We went uphill through the woods, coming
out of the woods at a great picnic spot and viewpoint according to our
guidebook, but it was too rainy to enjoy. We walked through more woods, along
the edge of woods, along the edge of a rapeseed (canola) field, and then on the
path that took us to the Tyndale monument. We chose not to go up the 131 steps
in the tower to enjoy a view we couldn’t see. Instead, we stood just inside the
tower doorway, the cold wind blowing down the tower on our backs, to eat our shared
sandwich.
The former path down the hill was blocked
off and labelled dangerous. The new path went down a rocky gully. Near the
bottom we passed a group of assorted ages heading up. One man said something
about a beautiful summer day, and Sara suddenly remembered that it was summer. It has felt more like March
or October. A woman in a NY Yankee cap said that it was a good day for ducks.
We came out at North Nibley, and went into
the pub there. We used the wifi and had tea and lemonade. There was a strange
dynamic among the people who worked there, and so we didn’t linger.
It rained a little as we left the pub, and
we saw coming down a hill to our left a group of adults and children happily
bushwhacking their way down a public footpath. If paths aren’t well used, they
tend to become clogged with vegetation (mainly stinging nettles), and these
people were using their walking poles to beat down the growth. They seemed
quite cheerful as they fought their way downhill and across the street.
We went down a narrow path and onto a road.
We passed a fridge with cold water specifically provided for walkers on the
Cotswold way, and a tap and a dish of water for dogs. That was really kind and
inviting to see.
Someone had also created a sign to show clearly where the Cotswold Way was, in a break in the hedge.
Someone had also created a sign to show clearly where the Cotswold Way was, in a break in the hedge.
We passed five younger men in shorts and thin shirts running down the hill, and they warned us about the mud ahead. It was really slippery. After a grainfield, we got to the road.
We met a man there, and Ken said, “Really muddy!” and the man instantly checked his legs and thought Ken was referring to him! We explained that we were referring to the fields ahead, not to him personally. “Really muddy” would describe pretty much anyone walking today.
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| A kind of abstract beauty in the boot-prints in the field |
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| Accumulation of field mud on Sara's boot |
There was a long rainy uphill walk to a
golf course in the trees, and then a long downhill into Dursley. We went to
Sainsbury’s to buy our dinner—three microwavable dishes of Indian and Chinese
food. We had a friendly clerk at the checkout, Nikita, who chatted with us and
told us she had a friend in Saskatchewan. She later saw us sitting on a bench
and looked at the weather forecast on her phone, and the first thing that came
up were the flood warnings! We sat and rested on a bench inside Sainsbury’s till
the rain decreased a bit.
We enjoy watching a show called Grand Designs, which features people
building homes of their own unique designs. Ken was quite certain that he knew where a treehouse from one episode of the show had been built in Dursley, and
sure enough, we found the gate to “The Treehouse.” We regret not taking a
photo. It was one of Ken’s favourite homes on the show, and he had recently
been able to watch the episode again.
We liked the outside of the church in
Dursley, and also the war memorial gate.
As we walked out of town and got going on
the Cotswold Way again, we met a group of three women to whom we said hello,
and then further on there were two women. First we only saw one, and she was
stopped and leaning on her walking poles, looking tired. Then we saw the other
woman. They asked if they were close to Dursley, and we said that they were.
They had walked from King’s Stanley, about seven miles, and had planned to get
to Wotton, but thought they might have taken on too much for one day. They
looked really tired, so we hoped that they were able to cut their day’s walk a
bit short.
We walked near the base of Cam Longdown but
chose not to go up it because of the mud and the rain. Instead, we took a
bridleway that began well, but then it descended into pools of mud and water,
which we briefly had to wade through. Surprisingly, Sara’s boots held the water
out, and Ken’s feet got only a little damp. The path improved later, and we
reached our B&B at 5:00. The B&B was spacious, had everything we
needed, and it also had a bath. It was nice to be inside (after once again
stripping off boots, socks, pantlegs), and we heated our food and watched
Canada defeat New Zealand in women’s football/soccer 2-0. Again we had no
Internet, so the blog got even further behind.
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