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. 

Cotswold Way - Day 1 - Chipping Campden to Stanton

This is the first sign that you see in Chipping Campden for the beginning of the Cotswold Way.  This assumes that you are walking it from North to South, which seems to be the preferred way.  After all, everyone knows North to South is always downhill.   From here it's 102 miles down to Bath.  I am attempting it in ten (easy?) stages.  The first is the ten and a half mile schlep to the village of Stanton.

As everyone is bored of hearing by now, this has been the wettest blah, blah, since blah.  I woke on Thursday to heavy rain and puncturing anxiety fuelled dreams, I heard a good deal of rain in the night too. Yet just five minutes before I park the car, it stops raining and I have a morning of walking in cold and misty conditions - as you can see from the photo below that is taken at Fish Hill,  But I'm not being rained on. 

As a result of all this mist, I miss out on some great views which the guidebook assures me are there.  Broadway Tower, the second highest point of the Cotswolds, is not as easy to spot as it should be and so I don't stay and linger there, preferring to get down to Broadway itself for lunch.  Broadway is every bit as delightful as expected (almost as nice as Chipping Campden) and while eating the most expensive panini and coffee I've ever had, I speak to my favourite parishioner on the phone to tell her I am on my way, in one piece, and dry.  At which point, of course, it starts to rain. 

Telephone boxes in Broadway, notice the wet pavement!

I'm not too disheartened by the rain, I'm more concerned that the town seems full of shops that sell antiques rather than useful items like Mars bars and newspapers.  Besides, I have done most of my walking for the day.  It's 6 miles from the start to Broadway, so the perfect place to get lunch and rest a while before the last four and a half miles to Stanton.  

Well, there are several reasons for what happens in the afternoon.  It could be because I lose concentration.  It might be that I have my hood up and my head down and so miss some markers.  It might be because I am trying to keep my book dry (a losing battle) and so don't want to pull it out of my pocket too often. 

As a result I get lost, not once, not twice, but three times.  The first doesn't cost me much extra mileage but the second one does.  And I can't turn around once I know my mistake, not through male pride but because I have been bitten by a dog and there is no way I am retracing my steps to go and see him again! 

I am bitten by a collie near Manor Farm - walkers beware - despite being on a public bridleway.  The wrong bridleway admittedly but I am definitely on a public path.  He breaks the skin but doesn't leave a mark on my trousers and I swear at it.  (This being the part of the story that my kids can't get over, but then I realise they don't tend to hear me swear.  Which is a good thing.) 

It shakes me up a bit, and after a error in navigation in the final field I need to cross (for which I hold the book responsible this time) the pedometer tells me I have probably walked the best part of seven miles on this afternoon leg rather than four and a half.     

It is with great pleasure and some relief that I check into The Old Post House in Stanton, getting a lovely welcome.  I wash my kit, get a shower and drink a lot of tea.  I'm quite tired at the end of today but, on reflection, the fact I have walked around 13 miles shows that I can.  The legs of the journey that are supposed to be that long don't look so daunting now.  Assuming that I don't get lost, of course.     



"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!