Sara's Post on Packing

Sara's pack

We have always traveled with everything we needed in our packs, carrying them with us as we walk from point to point. For the first time, for one day on this trip we had our packs transported from Porlock to Luxborough, and it was actually rather nice just to share a day pack between us for the walk.

On our walk this time, several people we met commented on the fact that we seemed to be carrying little with us, and I could tell that people were curious about how we managed to keep our packs relatively light. Before we left, I weighed the packs--Ken's was 13 pounds, and mine was 12.5.

I thought people might find a post about packing interesting, so here it is!

My first comment is that packing is a really personal thing--what is essential to you will not be essential to someone else. I think the important thing is determining what is essential, and getting rid of the rest. Go through your list multiple times, and keep pruning it down. Learn from experience--if you didn't use something this trip, don't bring it on the next.

A second comment is that some of the things we include will be different from your packing list because we have chosen to live without a mobile phone. So you likely wouldn't be travelling with a laptop, paper notebook, camera, travel alarm, or paper documentation (and perhaps not even with the maps) that we include because we don't have a phone. On the other hand, our paper maps and notebook mean that if there is no Internet/wifi/phone reception, we're never stranded or at a loss.

A third comment is that I took the photos quickly before unpacking, and I didn't organize the items well according to the categories I use. I also included some items that I don't plan to take next time (like ear plugs). Sorry about that!

A fourth comment is that I admit I am a bit proud of packing light and carrying all of our stuff with us (though sometimes I wish we weren't). However, there will always be someone who packs lighter than you do, so you can't get too proud about it! It was humbling to meet a couple who were on a month's holiday wild camping. Their packs were about the same size as ours, and they were carrying their tent, their sleeping bag, perhaps a change of clothes, and the food for their dog. We are a long way from living that simply--our four changes of socks and underwear are quite luxurious in comparison.

My pack isn't large, and fits as carry-on on the plane. We like that we don't have to deal with checked baggage--everything we need is in our two carry-on backpacks. For the flight, I transfer anything I'll want during the flight (hand sanitizer, a book) into the daypack which I have as my "personal item." Both of our packs came with a pack cover for rainy days, and these covers have been invaluable.

My packing list is organized into categories. It's going to look like there are a lot of items, but many of them are small and light and pack down well. Think about the various compartments of your pack and find where things fit best and are easily accessible when they need to be.

Another tip is that you should distribute the weight throughout your pack rather than having all of the heavy things at the bottom. Usually I have dirty laundry at the bottom, then clean clothes, then perched on that my laptop (which is the heaviest item), and toiletries/travel items that I'll want to access. Having the laptop kind of "floating" in the middle of my pack seems to distribute the weight well and to create less drag on my shoulders. But the pack shouldn't be resting on your shoulders much anyway--the waist band should help the pack to rest on your hips and waist as you walk.

1. Travel documents and paperwork. This could include

• some kind of pouch/wallet to carry money and government documents (I also bring a change purse)
• passports and other necessary ID
• whatever monetary items you need (cash, credit card, etc.)
• any cards used for transit (e.g., Oyster cards for London transit)
• printouts of plane tickets, train reservations, etc. (though we've reduced the amount we now print out and take with us)

[clockwise from top] Toiletries, pouch for money, change purse, notebook, comb

2. Toiletries. Since I don't wear make-up and use few cosmetic products, my list is going to be more minimal than the list for many women. The picture above shows my toiletry bag, but the list below includes everything that Ken and I bring (I mean everything, so that you have an idea of how we pack light). There will be some things, again, that you would decide aren't necessary, like Q-Tips (but they do have the virtue of being light!). You could probably not bring shampoo and use whatever you find at B&Bs, but I like to have my own shampoo and hair conditioner with me.

• toothbrush
• toothpaste
• razor
• shaving cream
• dental floss (I tried dental flossing "picks" this trip but I think floss is better, and more versatile if you need string.)
• deodorant
• shampoo
• hair conditioner
• comb
• nail clippers
• manicure scissors (sometimes you need scissors when traveling)
• cleaning cloth for glasses
• Q-Tips
• sanitary products
• a hair elastic

 3. Medication/First Aid. Obviously dependent on if you have medical prescriptions. In this section, there are some things you bring that you hope you won't need to use, like the bandages and blister plasters:

• bandages
• blister plasters
• pain medication
• antihistamines (for allergies)
• antacid
• any prescription medications
• hand sanitizer--can also be used as a disinfectant
• [for next time, I'd like to buy one of those light plastic tick removal tools]

[clockwise from top] bag for "travel" items, plastic bag, hand sanitizer, travel alarm, kleenex, pain medication, hair elastic, earplugs, bandaids, blister plasters, compass, glasses cleaning cloth

4. Clothing. All of our clothing is quick-dry technical fabric except for our socks, which means that if you are disciplined and wash out a pair of underwear each night, you won't run out of fresh clothing during the trip. Unfortunately, I'm not that disciplined! There will usually be a B&B along the way that has laundry facilities or will do laundry for you for a fee. If a place has a heated towel rail, I'll just wash a few things in the sink using whatever hand soap has been provided, and dry them on the towel rail. A two-night stay means that drying the socks is possible if they're washed the first evening we're there. Here's everything that I bring as clothing:

• three T-shirts
• one long-sleeved fleece
• two pairs of trousers (one with zip-off legs so it can be converted into shorts)
• four underwear
• two bras
• four pairs of socks
• ball cap
• runner's gloves
• rain jacket
• boots

My strategy is to keep one pair of trousers as the "dressy" pair for the entire trip. I wear one pair for walking during the day, and it can get as muddy and disreputable as it needs to. I can zip off the legs and night and wash them out, while wearing my "good" pair to go to the pub or whatever. Since the good pair never gets really dirty, it lasts the whole trip without washing. Ditto for the second bra, worn only as the "good" one, while the other one can get sweaty and be washed out periodically. One shirt to sleep in also doubles as a "clean" shirt to wear when the others are dirty.

The ball cap has a brim that keeps rain off of my glasses, and also works as a sun hat/visor. The gloves are always a debatable item for me (should I bring them or not?), but when it is cold on a walk, they do help to keep you warm.

I noticed that I just listed the rationale for why I bring each item, which is probably a good thing to do. Every thing should have a compelling reason to be included (like the ball cap) and ideally it would have multiple functions (the cap keeps rain off my glasses and keeps the sun out of my eyes, so I don't need to bring sunglasses).

Ken's clothing list is similar to mine, except he has one more t-shirt and one more long-sleeved shirt.

The compressible day pack, a ball cap, and light runner's gloves

5. Travel Items. My catch-all category for everything else.

• backpacks
• a compressible, light daypack (NEW! for this trip, and it worked well)
• a water bottle (Ken carries a Nalgene water bottle, while I use a water bottle from a B&B which I refill a few times before using another one. Yes, I know you're not supposed to re-use disposable bottles, but I figure a couple of re-uses won't kill me.)
• camera
• travel alarm
• paper notebook
• pen
• travel guides (like the book on the Cotswold Way)
• Ordinance Survey (OS) maps. Ken always carries the maps: eight of them this trip!
• a plastic waterproof map case
• dry sacks (waterproof sacks for the maps and the laptop)
• a compass
• sunscreen
• a plastic fork/spoon (super light, comes in handy if you buy salad)
• a plastic grocery bag to sit on. This item is actually brilliant--it's light and folds up easily. You can just put it on the grass and sit down confidently even if it's a bit damp outside. The bag can also be used to hold dirty laundry or as a waterproof sack for items inside the backpack. If the bag gets really dirty, it's easy to get hold of another one.
• laptop computer, power cord, and converter plug (because UK electrical outlets are different from North American ones)
• the seals (because we wouldn't be walking with seals, otherwise)

That's all we take. This trip, I was not going to take a notebook and pen, but at the last minute I threw it in, and I'm glad. It's easier for me to pull out the notebook on a train, or at a picnic table, or hold it in bed and write down notes about the day, or to note down a book title Ken wants to find, or to keep addresses we need without having to take out a laptop and power it up. Again, most people would use a phone, but I really like my notebook and pen!

B2B Day 26 Uley to Stroud and London: The Last Day

The last day of the walk, and some mixed feelings—glad to be done, but not wanting to be done. For an OS map of today's walk (8.81 mi; 14.2 km; 1,627 ft total ascent) click here.

We ate our breakfast of croissants and bananas that we had brought with us, tidied up and packed, and left around 10:00. We saw our host Janet who told us how to cut through the neighbourhoods to the village. At the Uley Community store, we got a Bunter’s chicken tikka sandwich and two flapjacks. We’re rather wary of flapjacks, having eaten several that we haven’t enjoyed, but when they look homemade they are usually good. These looked homemade.

We walked past the village church and uphill through a field,

 

The view back downhill towards Uley

and then a short but steep uphill through the woods to another prehistoric hill fort. It was really cool. It was also a bit rainy. 

Entering the hill fort

Resuming our walk through the woods, we met three walkers who didn’t say much, and then four Canadians from Vancouver. It was one of the women’s birthday, and she was going to stop in Dursley to have cake and celebrate. They told us that the Toronto Raptors had won the NBA Championship, which really surprised Ken.

We had a bit of a climb up out of the forest, and came to a bench at the intersection of some roads, and sat and ate our lunch there during a break in the rain. We even had some sun at the tail end of lunch. While we ate lunch, we saw three people pass by, and the two women were not dressed for walking—they had purses and fancy boots, and one had a fur-lined collar on her coat. We wanted to see if they were actually headed onto the Cotswold trail, but we got talking and missed seeing where they went. By the way, the flapjacks were good, though a bit sweet.

After that, we went down a path into some darker woods, and it began to rain. We were putting our coats on just as three women came by. Ken told them we had been in denial about the rain, but were now giving up and putting on our coats. Further on, we met a couple that we really enjoyed talking with. They had done a lot of walking. She was from Southern California, and he had a British accent, but we got the impression that they lived in the States. He congratulated us a couple of times about completing our long walk, and said that only people who walked a lot would know what an accomplishment it was. He also mentioned that he was tired about washing out muddy socks every night, a sentiment with which we could definitely agree!

We then arrived at a viewpoint and topograph (a diagram of what we were seeing in the landscape) which we were able to enjoy looking at in the temporary stoppage of rain. We then walked further to look at a reconstructed long barrow (burial mound). This one was originally 2 metres high, and had about 20 people buried in it over the time period of about 200 years. 

At the excavated and reconstructed barrow

Our wooded path then took us on a long steady downhill that hurt our toes. 

 

The path through the woods

We periodically heard what we decided was a lonely bachelor bull bellowing out his sadness. We saw a herd of cows with long horns, but the bellowing was coming from another higher field away from the cows. 

We came to a decision point, and opted to go to Selsley rather than King’s Stanley. Sara took her coat off because she was getting so hot, and then had to put it on again ten minutes later because it started raining again, which was slightly frustrating.

We paused at the foot of a hill trying to decide whether to go up the hill to Selsley common or to take a lower road. As we pondered, two runners came down the muddy hill, the man in front running right through the mud. He asked if we had seen any other runners, and he explained that he was checking out the course for an upcoming relay race. He said it was worth climbing the hill for the views from the common, and we’d know whom to blame if we were disappointed. Ken said that there would be no recriminations, and he shouted back over his shoulder, “Well, you’d need to catch me for that!” A woman was running behind him, and she just smiled at us and said hello. We did decide to go up the steep hill, with a few pauses for rest.

It was worth it when we got to the top, with an almost 360 degree view of the surrounding countryside. There were lots of people and dogs up there. We enjoyed the views and looked at the topograph. 

Barrows on Selsley common

There were many paths, and we asked a woman how to get to the church. We got going on a path and then ended up in a section of small hummocky hills created by a former quarry. We did manage to find our path again and got down to the church in Selsley. It was a Victorian church with a lot of stained glass done by the Pre-Raphaelite artists, and Sara got a guide-book for future reference.

We then arrived at The Bell pub at ten minutes to four, and learned that if we ordered immediately, we could get food. So we did. We knew that we would be on the train and arriving late in London, so this was our best chance for a nice evening meal, our last one in England. Because it was Sunday, Sara had the roast veal with Yorkshire pudding and a horseradish cream sauce that Ken thought was amazing. Ken had the best fish of the trip, with good chips. We shared a bread pudding with custard sauce as dessert, and it was just the thing to end our final walk of the trip, and an excellent and satisfying “last pub meal.” 

As we were walking away, our server had gotten off his shift and was walking our way. He asked if we needed directions, and then said we could walk with him aways until we got to where he could point us to the canal path. And so we did. We found the canal path interesting, since it had fairly recently been restored. It was a short walk from there to the train station in Stroud, where we caught a train to London Paddington.

The train was new, clean, and quiet. We had reserved seats in the “quiet car,” and it was quiet. Sara had to walk through the next car to go to the bathroom, and it was definitely more noisy!

We arrived in London around 9:00 p.m., took the underground to Victoria station, and checked into our room at Easy Hotel in Victoria. We knew what to expect—a small room with space only for the double bed, and a tiny shower room. However, the room was hot and stuffy, and we are thinking that if we had to do it over again, we would either finish the walk and stay at a B&B that night, or stay in a nicer place in London like the London House Hotel, which is considerably more expensive but also a lot more comfortable.

We did have a good day of walking this last day, seeing good sights, meeting interesting people, and enjoying good food.

B2B Day 25 Wortley to Uley: Good Meetings amidst the Mud

For an OS map of today's walk (8.0 mi; 12.9 km; 1,335 ft total ascent) click here.

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.

 

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.

A kind of abstract beauty in the boot-prints in the field

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.

 

B2B Day 24 West Littleton to Wortley: A Very Long, Very Wet Day on the Cotswold Way

Our longest day of walking—probably ending up at around 16 miles if the walk back down from Wotton to Wortley is included. For an OS map of today's walk (14.4 mi; 23.2 km; 1,010 ft total ascent), click here.

The weather forecast predicted that there would be rain till 10:00 a.m., then clear until maybe 2:00 p.m., and then clear from 3:00 onwards. Wrong on all counts! After another excellent breakfast and a chat with Boo about walking, she pointed us from her front door to the gate to the road, and we set out in the rain. As we passed the church again, we saw the vans for the movie shoot of Sanditon that weekend. We did a bit more road walking than we might have, just because it was so wet. Along the road, we passed a section where there seemed to be evenly spaced vans, and evenly spaced dogs that were invisible to us, each one barking as we approached. There were two empty kennels further down the road, for good measure. At a junction we met the Cotswold Way, which we would follow for most of the rest of our walk this trip.

We eventually came into Tormarton, and decided to visit the church. There were a couple of walkers inside, and we chatted with the woman a fair amount. She said that they hadn’t met many people on the Cotswold Way, but that there were four Americans behind them.

After we came out of the church, we were deciding whether to take road or path, and we saw four people on the path and decided to take the path in order to meet them. They were indeed four Americans from Colorado. This was their first long walk in England, and so far, they had only experienced mud and rain. Ken mentioned that he had worked at a church camp in Colorado, and one woman said, “Not La Foret?” It was, and she had been to that camp and was confirmed there. They told us that the St. Louis Blues had won the Stanley Cup, and that they were Colorado Avalanche fans. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting them!

Our American friends

We took the path through the Doddington Estate, apparently owned by the Mr. Dyson of vacuum-cleaner fame. We were looking at the sheep on the hills and commenting on how white and clean they looked, and Ken said, “Well, they’re Dyson sheep!” meaning they had been well vacuumed. When we got closer we realized that they had been shorn rather than vacuumed.

The paths through the estate were very well waymarked. The paths themselves were quite muddy, and it was raining again. There was a tricky downhill stretch, but neither of us slipped.

After we emerged from Doddington Park, the rain got heavier and heavier, just after noon. We sat on a bale of hay in a shed at the side of the road, and watched the rain bounce off of the road’s paved surface (rather than its bouncing off of us). 

Rain dancing off the pavement

We decided to leave at 12:30 whether or not the rain had finished, and it had diminished a bit by then. We walked into the village of Old Sodbury, quite sodden ourselves. We stopped for a pub lunch at The Dog Inn, hanging our coats up and putting our packs by the fire (the fire wasn’t lit, but it felt like the packs could drip there safely). The cottage pie was good; we didn’t enjoy the quiche as much. The people were friendly. While we were in the pub, it had stopped raining and there was occasional brightness outside. We geared up and stepped out of the pub, and the rain was instantly torrential. We came back into the pub to wait to see if the rain would decrease. A man sitting at the bar looked at his phone for the forecast, and said, “Oh, it’s supposed to be sunny spells from now on!” We did set out into a slightly lighter rain, but it was steady and at times heavy. Then through the woods on a very wet path, to a prehistoric hill fort that looked impressive and interesting, but we only lifted our heads briefly in the rain, looked at it as we walked through it, and kept going. We met two Canadians from Ontario who were walking the Cotswold Way—they were obviously having the same rainy muddy experience as we.

For a few minutes, Ken couldn’t find the path we wanted, and Sara said she’d go up a path that looked overgrown just to see if it got better. It did, and it was the path we wanted. We came up to a farm, and resumed the path through a grain field. This was the best grain field path ever, with about a two foot wide space between the grain, so it was easy to stick to the path, and wet grain didn’t fall over and soak us as we were walking through.

We then walked on the road a bit, and the weather was a bit better. We saw ads along the road for a 3 km run on Saturday. We saw four men walking who recommended the Beaufort Arms pub, and then saw some cute sheep who just looked at us and didn’t seem afraid. We found the wonderful lane described in the Cotswold Way guide book that Ken had brought, and it was indeed a broad, good path into Hawkesbury Upton. We passed a Mom with two children, and the children were taking turns happily jumping in large puddles on the path. Mom made them wait till we had passed, and Sara commented that she wished she got as much enjoyment from getting wet as the children seemed to experience.

The path took us to the Beaufort Arms, an interesting pub with a very cool skittles alley. Ken wished we had more time there so that we could learn how to play skittles. The man we dealt with first was “minding the house” for the publican (Sara noticed he had to look up the price for lemonade), and she overheard the publican when he came in asking about business, and the “minder” replied that he had been serving “soggy walkers” all day. The publican was friendly, and when he found out we were from Canada, he said that he saved his ire for Americans. But why have ire at all, Sara silently wondered? The more we travel, the more we feel that people are people; holding to stereotypes and biases, even in “fun,” isn’t a fruitful way of interacting with people. [Sorry for the mini-sermon!]

On the road again, we passed Pond Cottage and the Somerset Monument, but decided not to take pictures because of the chance of rain. We took a field path to Lower Kilcot, then a slippery and muddy downhill path. What surprised Sara was the suction of the mud—it was gooey, clingy, and (as another walker put it), felt like it added ten pounds of weight to each foot as it accumulated. We saw Bridge Cottage, which was absolutely lovely. The loveliness was followed by the worst path of the walk so far—muddy and rutted, the mud the colour of chocolate. It was dispiriting to walk through. When we got to Alderley, we decided to take the road, and that worked well. We wanted to find our B&B in Wortley, but then take the bus to Wotton under Edge to buy our dinner. We wandered into the grounds of where we thought our B&B was, and a neighbour came out and directed us correctly. We saw where the garden house was, but then we were worried about missing the bus, so before dropping off our packs or anything, we walked to the bus stop (which we needed to find first). We ended up waiting for the bus about 20 minutes, standing with our packs because there was nowhere to sit. The bus did come a bit earlier than scheduled, which was a small consolation. As we were riding towards Wotton, the way seemed much longer than Ken had thought, and we knew that we had to walk back from Wotton because we were on the last bus of the day. That was dispiriting as well, since we had already experienced a long, rainy, muddy walk with few rests.

In Wotton, we found the Tesco Express, and the nice clerk there advised us to get the meal deal to save money, and generally chatted with us in a kindly and cheerful way, which was encouraging. We left the village around 7:10 p.m. and Ken found good paths out of town, through a cow pasture, and on the road (instead of through a bean field which might have been too wet). It seemed that suddenly, our gate appeared (at about 7:45). We knew the place we were staying was going to be beautiful, so we got in the door and immediately stripped off boots and socks, and unzipped our muddy pant legs before coming inside. Sara went into the bathroom and Ken heard her voice exclaim, “Oh, Ken, it was worth every step!” There was a lovely deep bathtub, a feature she wasn’t sure would be there. 

The bath!

The aesthetics of the garden room we were staying were outstanding—we particularly liked the material chosen for curtains and accents in the room. 

We had our little dinner of sandwiches and crisps, supplemented with some fruit our host had kindly left for breakfast. We were so tired we forgot to hang out several things to dry, like our gloves, but Sara did wash out our pant legs and dried them on the heated towel rail. We were surprised that there was no Internet, but we enjoyed having a bath and then watching t.v.

B2B Day 23 A Rest Day to Visit Dyrham Park

Today was a rest day at West Littleton in order to visit the house at Dyrham Park.

Our breakfast was outstanding, with a delicious fruit salad of blueberries, strawberries, and nectarine; also nice cereals and wholemeal toast. Ken had a cooked breakfast of sausage, bacon and egg, and he said that it was the best sausage of the trip.

We first walked (in the light rain) to the village church, which we enjoyed seeing and singing in. Apparently it is being used in the filming of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon, so we’ll enjoy watching for it when the film comes out.

The church at West Littleton

The walk to Dyrham Park was around two miles. We had the options of taking a more direct field path or a slightly longer route that included walking alongside the A-road (an A road is one of the busiest roads). Our host Boo was very helpful in providing us with local knowledge that the field path would be muddy and drenching with rapeseed in it (been there, done that!), and she said that there was a good verge at the side of the A-road all the way to Dyrham Park. We opted for the road. There was indeed a wide, mown verge. However, someone turned up the amount of rain when we got onto the A-road, and it just pelted down. We just put down our heads and walked. There was a lot of road spray, and Sara was especially impressed (and even touched) by how a huge truck moved out of its lane (since there was no oncoming traffic) to avoid splashing the two hunched down walkers at the side of the road. We arrived at the driveway where cars would enter Dyrham Park, walked down a short way, and saw what looked like a shuttle bus from the car park. Ken shouted over the weather, “Let’s take it!” and we did, though Sara was initially distracted by Ken’s having said that someone who looked like Patrick Stewart was parking his car. [We later saw the visitor, who was not Patrick Stewart.] We got on the shuttle bus and were taken to the entrance of the house. Only afterwards did we realize that people were supposed to pay the entry fee before getting on the bus, but we had paid memberships, so it turned out okay.

A friendly volunteer met us and showed us where to start our tour, so we read all of the information in the display in the basement before attending a seventeenth-century “tea tasting.” We tasted some gunpowder green tea, which gained its name because of the dried tea leaves’ resemblance to gunpowder, not because of the taste. We learned the secret for green tea is not to use boiling water—you should either pour the water before it boils, or let it sit a minute after boiling. It was delicious tea, and won over Sara, who is not really a fan of green tea. We were talking about different taxes, and Sara puzzled one of the volunteers with a reference to the candle tax. Hopefully they found it something interesting to research—there really was a tax on wax candles, and there was a substantial fine if a person attempted to make candles himself to avoid paying the candle tax.

We toured the house from about 11:30-1:00. In the first room, we listened to a woman play the harpsichord and another woman play the viola de gamba, which was made in 1963 and had an otter with a crown on the tuning head. Ken asked about it, and the viola was made in a European country (we can’t remember which one—Belgium?) in which an otter with a crown was part of the king’s coat of arms. There was a legend of the king visiting an estate with all of the people lined up to see him, and as he stood on a bridge over the river, his crown blew off, and out of the river an otter popped up with the crown on his head. We enjoyed the story, and the music. 

The house was interesting, though there were fewer rooms open than we had anticipated, so it felt as though our tour suddenly ended after a short time. We went to the café for a warm lunch—a coconut curry and a jacket potato with cheese, with almond cherry cake and tea to finish off. And a gingerbread sheep biscuit. As we were leaving the café we had a good chat with a couple of women who were doing the Cotswold Way in the opposite direction to us. They said that the paths were very muddy and slippery in the direction we were headed.

After lunch we went to the front of the house and Ken took several photos of the house and the deer, who seemed fairly tame. Ken noted that the exterior was used in the film The Remains of the Day.

Dyrham Park, the East Front

 

"Say, who is that strange guy with a camera?"

We wandered about the gardens a bit, since the weather had cleared up and there was an occasional gleam of sunshine. 

But we were on time for our 3:30 “Behind the Scenes” tour with volunteers Liz and Clive. They described some of the work conservators do to address the problems of insects and other vermin that attack the objects and house. They also took us up to the storage areas and showed us some of the objects that aren’t on display and might never be on display at the museum, including a doll selling all kinds of miniature “wares,” and a document permitting the owner of Dyrham to keep deer and pheasant, a document which had Henry VIII’s signature and seal on it. That was pretty cool, to be up close to an original signature and seal like that (although we’re not huge Henry VIII fans). We learned that there was a ten-year wait to get tapestries cleaned and conserved in Belgium, though some cleaning and preservation work is also done at Blickling Manor (Sara thought that tapestry restoration might be a good occupation to go into, with that kind of backlog). The tour concluded with a look at the roof project they did at Dyrham Park a few years ago. 

Apparently while the project was going on, people could visit the house at the roof level, and it was accessible for people in wheelchairs as well, to go up on a lift and see the house and the work, which was a moving experience for people who ordinarily can’t experience that kind of tour. It was pretty cool.

We rested in the café a bit more and then went to the church next door and looked around. 

The same volunteer who had met us in the morning happened to be there to close the church, so we chatted together as we all walked out. From there, we walked to The Bull in Hinton, and sat at a picnic table outside till they opened at 6:00. We really liked this pub. Our table was in the snug, and we loved the music mix they were playing.

We decided to order a “bite” before hand, bread with herb butter. Ken had a burger and Sara had gnocchi in a creamy pesto sauce with butternut squash and broccoli—it was amazing! It wins for the best dish Sara had on this trip. Our host Boo picked us up, and we were home around 8:30 to read some more before falling asleep. Ken did finish reading Bill Bryson’s Down Under.

B2B Day 22 Castle Combe to West Littleton: Loath to Leave the Castle Inn

For an OS map of today's walk (6.45 mi; 10.38 km; 691 ft total ascent) click here.

Breakfast at the Manor House

We were loath to leave the Castle Inn in Castle Combe, because it was such a relaxing and beautiful place to stay. The Castle Inn caters to large groups (like groups of golfers), and so perhaps that was the reason that our breakfast this morning was at “The Manor House” rather than in the conservatory at the Castle Inn. The Manor House is an even more expensive and upmarket place to stay than the Castle Inn. We walked there, past beautiful cottages used for accommodation, and chose a table near the window. The central table where you serve yourself for the breakfast preliminaries had the most incredible variety we had ever seen. They had four types of juice, two types of fruit smoothies, charcuterie (cheese, meat, baguettes), all kinds of fresh fruit, fruit salad, lots of dried fruit (cranberries, apricots), nuts, different 

Sara in front of the fire at the Castle Inn

granolas (including macadamia mango and a cocoa oat granola that Sara had to try), and probably a few other things we didn’t notice. We had tea and toast at the table, and Ken had eggs benedict for his cooked breakfast, while Sara had sausage, egg, and mushrooms. The place was elegant, and the staff were friendly.

We went back to our room at the Castle Inn and stayed there till checkout at 11:00—we definitely wanted to enjoy it for as long as we could! I lazed in the room while Ken went out to explore the village. It was cold enough that there was a lit fire in the dining area at the inn, which was a good place to sit while getting our packs organized. A little later, the hotel staff also let us leave our packs at the hotel when we both decided to have a last wander around the village. Castle Combe is famously picturesque, and we took lots of pictures—all the while trying not to get into other people's pictures!

The main square of Castle Combe, with the Castle Inn (left & centre) and the market cross (right)

The "classic view" of Castle Combe...

...is a magnet for photographers!

The village is beautiful and has been used in many films—we had seen War Horse which had been partly filmed there, and we both remembered an episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot in which Poirot attempts to retire to the country, and his “home” was obviously filmed in Castle Combe.

Poirot's home?

It rained in the morning, but the rest of the day was fairly dry. Nevertheless, after a quick lunch at the Old Stables Café where we had also bought a sandwich for dinner, we went back to the Castle Inn to pick up our backpacks and then head out of the village towards West Littleton. Our path initially took us by the Manor House and then onto the golf course behind it. We noticed that there weren’t many golfers on the course as we passed through. We found the paths better than expected, and after a mile or two encountered a beautiful hamlet of simply lovely houses (West Kington). 

At the beautiful hamlet of West Kington

On leaving West Kington we initially went down a path that led to a house because we were hoping it was the public footpath, but it wasn’t: it was the driveway! We backtracked a bit and took the real public footpath, which was a bit overgrown but not terrible. It crossed and then followed a cute little stream which would be our companion for much of the rest of the walk. Ken attempted to take several photos of some ducks, but they kept moving too fast to get a good one!

Alongside the stream

Eventually we entered a long farm track through fields with the stream still on our left, encountering a group of three horses that initially ignored us while we were up close and taking pictures of them, but then when we had crossed into the next field, they followed us and seemed to be asking, “Why aren’t you paying attention to us?”

The horse not really paying attention to us

 

Pay attention to us!

The little valley path was quite enjoyable, with the little stream on our left falling in stages along the way as we walked upstream. A few fields had sheep dotted about. After a couple more miles we finally walked up and out of the valley, and alongside more large fields the path that would take us to West Littleton became self-evident. Although some dramatic dark clouds threatened, it didn't rain.

Beautiful fields near West Littleton

The valley approaching West Littleton

We arrived around 4:20 p.m. without seeing our host, Boo. We sat on a bench outside the house to figure out what to do, but then she arrived a few moments later with the dog she had been walking. She took us in and asked if we would like tea, and she served us tea and delicious brownies. We really enjoyed chatting with her about our walk. One of the reasons we like traditional B&Bs is being able to meet and talk with friendly hosts, and this B&B was no exception. Our room was spacious and lovely, and we basically relaxed the rest of the time in our room, eating the dinner we had brought. Ken had started reading Bill Bryson’s Down Under at the Garden House at Peasedown St. John, and he noticed it on the shelves here, so he is hoping to finish it during our two days here. Sara is reading a copy of Little Women.