Cotswold Way - Day 3 - Winchcombe to Dowdeswell

Well, I needn't have worried about not quite finishing the previous leg.  By parking in the Back Lane car park I follow the Town Centre signs to come out exactly where I finished last time.  I take a diversion to get a picture of the Winchcombe stocks.  I am sure there must be a good reason why they have holes for seven legs in the stocks but have no idea what it is. 

                                          

It's a steep climb from Winchcombe up to Belas Knapp, in fact I think it might be the longest climb of the route, though I confess I need to investigate that in a bit more detail.  The views were good though. I know because I stopped to admire them plenty of times as I caught my breath.  

Belas Knap is a burial chamber dating back from around 3,800 BC.  The picture is of the false front.  As I arrive there an Australian couple are just leaving and a retired couple from Rutland have arrived a minute or two before me.  I get to chat with them and it turns out that all five of us are doing the same stages today and tomorrow.  We'll bump into each other several times as we walk and build up a bit of friendly camaraderie as we walk.    

It's very windy and quite cold up so high but if you keep moving it isn't so bad.  I finish the coffee from my flask and push on.  I walk down through a beautiful wooded path but it's very steep and actually, despite being downhill, it's probably the most painful part of the day's walk.  Also, in the back of your mind (well, in the front to be honest) there is the knowledge that for every step downhill there will be a corresponding step up hill to come and more, because I'm approaching Cleeve Hill and the highest point of the Cotswold Way.  

To this novice walker, it's hard work but it's well worth it, the views at the top are incredible.  

It's slightly odd to get to the top of a steep climb to end up on a golf course, stranger still that there are nervous looking sheep occupying the same space.  But there are golfers and grazers on Cleeve Common, I even spot lambs in a bunker on one of the holes.  Clearly got a baa-ed lie.  

                               

Here it is, the highest point on the Cotswold Way, proof that I made it. 

The views are spectacular but sadly Blogger says the panoramas that I took from there are too big to post.  I can see why, they are big views!  So I'll link in with my Flickr account to post some of those later.  It's very windy up there and I am blown around a bit just trying to take photographs.  It must be a nightmare to play golf in.  But what views!

Anything will be a bit of a comedown after such heights and the nature reserve I walk through is pretty uninteresting to be honest.  Maybe it's the wrong time of year.  Much more dispiriting though is the sight, just past some disused quarries, of dumped rubbish.  Drinks cartons and bottles mainly but particularly vexing and perplexing is the old tyre that someone has gone to great lengths to dump in the middle of a beauty spot.  They must have had to travel some distance to do this.  Morons.  It does, at least, serve to highlight the lack of litter on the rest of the walk, so far.

Heading towards Dowdeswell is a lovely gentle downhill walk, just what the doctor ordered when you are approaching the ten mile mark.  The sun is out as well and it makes for a very pleasant end to the day's walking.

If I had one complaint about the day (and it seems churlish to complain about anything at all on such a lovely stretch) it is the complete lack of facilities along this section.  With the possible exception of the golf clubhouse (I really should have taken a look) there are no toilets, places to get coffee or buy food anywhere.  So it is a great joy to come across a house at Dowdeswell Reservoir who is offering tea, coffee, chocolate bars and the like at very reasonable prices.  If you are walking there do drop in at Langett.  Just ring the bell at the bottom of the drive and shut the gate before you walk up the drive so thatthe free range chickens don't get out.  I sat in their garden with a cup of tea and a Mars bar and it revives my spirits almost as much as the friendly welcome from my hosts.  They are Cotswold Way people and also offer a range of Cotswold Way goodies.  I buy a relief map before I leave; I will get it framed as my reward when I finish.  It's a welcome break, a little oasis and the world feels like a better place for the existance of such places.   

Cotswold Way - Day 2 - Stanton to Winchcombe

The night before I set out I have a great steak at the Mount Inn at Stanton, washed down with a couple of pints.  On the table next to me I get talking to a couple of Canadians, mother and daughter and it turns out that despite not seeing one another, yesterday we set out about five minutes apart and finished within about half an hour of each other.  But then they didn't get lost.

At breakfast the only other guest is a recently retired woman who is starting her retirement walking the Cotswold Way in the opposite direction (South to North).  Which means that this morning will be her final leg.  She notes that because everyone else is walking it the 'right' way, she gets to meet other walkers about every hour and has had good chats along the way.  And it's the people that she remembers most about the walk, not the scenery - which is probably quietly profound.  Even more amazing that this is the first thing she talks about before telling me of the time she came face to face with a deer as she lingered in a wood, they just gazed at one another for ten minutes before the deer got bored and wandered off.  

Today the walking is a much easier 7.5 miles and it's made easier by the fact that my friend Nigel joins me.  Walking with someone is definitely a plus, especially when they bring you sandwiches and buy you tea and cake later as well.      

The first village that we come across is Stanway, and this is a picture of their cricket pavilion, set on saddle stones and with thatched roof.  It was a gift from JM Barrie, he of Peter Pan fame, who was a cricket fan and local to the area at one time.  It's a beautiful setting to play cricket in, set in a private estate and surrounded as it is with sheep grazing.  

After that there is some steeper climbing to be done and it's pretty thick with wet mud too.  For the only time over the two days I take off a layer of clothing, though this is down to the effort of the climb rather than any sunshine.    

Again the view from the top is reputed to be great and although visibility is better than yesterday, the mist is still rolling in.  This picture is quite nice though because it shows the medieval ploughing humps which are a feature of the area.  I have little idea what these are and will need to Google them.    

  

Nigel photographs a sheep, who was looking none too impressed throughout the experience. 

Our arrival at Hailes Abbey is the highlight of the walk for me today.  It's very quiet and still and we are the only visitors in the time we are there, which is probably why the woman running the centre is so keen to talk.  She is very entertaining and we have an interesting conversation on the similarities between Benedictine monks and Buddhists (her choice of topic).  It was brilliant to be able to photograph the Abbey with no-one else around.    

From there it is a pretty straight forward 2.5 mile walk into Winchcombe.  Even then though, my feet are feeling it a bit, so I am not unhappy to reach Winchcombe and be bought tea and cake.  We have some time before our bus arrives and so plan to check where the bus leaves from, finish the last few hundred yards and take a few pictures around the town.   However, the timetable at the bus stop doesn't match the information I have downloaded and it seems that the bus doesn't go back to Stanton as we wished. 

We are rescued by the friendliest butcher in the Cotswolds, who confirms our predicament and offers to ring for a taxi for us.  He explains that there used to be two taxi firms in the town and that when one of the men retired, young Steve took over and the butcher liked to put work his way.  Within about three minutes young Steve is outside the shop in his taxi, ready to go.  Young Steve is at least sixty but we are very grateful for his services. 

It is only later that I realise that I haven't actually finished the days walking.  I probably only have another five minutes walking to do to complete the second stage but I haven't done it yet.  I need to start at the butchers when I resume the walk in Winchcombe.  I'll probably be buying a pork pie or two as well, just to be friendly. 

"Can be very muddy in wet weather"

This is the week I finally begin my long-planned sabbatical trek along the Cotswold Way, walking North to South (because everyone knows that North to South is always downhill, right?)   I start at Chipping Campden and will end up, months later, in Bath.  Not because I am an incredibly slow walker - though I may be, especially with a camera and gorgeous countryside - but because I am doing it in two day stages.  So the plan is that I walk from Chipping Campden to Stanton on tomorrow, and then on to Winchcombe on Friday.  I'm nervous and excited about the challenge, it'll be good to get going at last.

As I read up a bit more on the trail (or is that trial?) I came across the observation - more than once - that in places the route can be very muddy in wet weather.  This coming after the wettest April on record.  Think I'm going to be turning up very wet and muddy at the end of Day 1. But as a friend who is joining me for Day 2 observed, it didn't stop Chris Bonnington.  Though I wasn't convinced that the Cotswold hills were that steep.  And then, suddenly and slightly mysteriously, a strange phenomenon in the sky yesterday afternoon - Mr Blue Sky!   Bring it on!