Guinness, Gammon, and Goujons October 2, 2017
This is what my trusty Keen hiking boots looked like at the end of our walk on Saturday. Yuk! We'd had another great day, for the most part - but it had ended a bit raggedly.
First of all, we knew that it would be a long hike from our Winchcombe BnB to the next closest accommodation that Bruce had been able to find (looking online before we left home). Eight or nine miles, we figured. Turned out to be 11 miles. Much too long, but we kinda had to keep going to the already-booked BnB.
At the top, we were rewarded with a Neolithic Long Barrow, which is a burial mound from 4000 years ago!
It was not possible to go inside, but just seeing it and trying to wrap our minds around that antiquity was an experience. It's situated on a rather remote ancient beacon site. A young couple had impressively jogged there, going uphill, passing us along the way. We had a chat with them at the barrow. They are hoping to flee the endless cloudy, damp English weather by moving to Germany. He's an electrician and figures that he can find a job there, as long as he speaks German, which both he and his girlfriend are studying.
After some lovely flat terrain, we headed down, down and then up again onto Cleeve Hill, the highest point in this area. On the common area of Cleeve Hill, we passed many weekenders of all ages out for a brisk walk with their dogs and kids. One part of the Cleeve could be accessed by car, and an improbably located golf course was pretty busy in its windy locale. It was curious to see it sharing the hilltop area with ramblers like us, as well as roaming sheep. We hoped we wouldn't get hit on the noggin by an errant golf ball!
Around 2 pm, we stopped at the club house for tea and eccles cake.
The next attraction on the trail was a breezy panoramic site, looking past the city of Cheltenham, over to the Malvern Hills, possibly to Wales, which isn't far away.
As the day wore on, our niggling worry was that neither our guide book nor the Cotswold Trail gave any indication of how we would get down into the town of Charlton Kings, our destination for the night. As long as we kept to the trail, we were in pretty good shape - but the trail didn't go through Charlton Kings itself, just nearby - somewhere! Again, we were faced with having to go off-trail. We remembered how well that had worked a few days previously! Bruce's GPS got a good workout as he tried deciphering a route for us. Finally, we asked a passing walker. He advised to begin going down off the escarpement right then on a side footpath. For a moment, it seemed that it would be pretty easy: just go downhill. We could see the city of Cheltenham right below us. Charlton Kings, a suburb, had to be nearby, as he had indicated.
Alas, not as easy as we had hoped. We got lost again, ending up in a field with a gang of horses and a very wet piece of pasture to cross over. I gingerly stepped in, having no idea that I'd immediately sink into the muck up to my ankles, almost losing the shoe off my foot. My flimsy walking stick snapped in two as I plunged onto drier ground.
Looking around, it seemed that we were surrounded by thick hedges on all sides of the field. Just then, Bruce spotted two women across the field. He approached and learned that one was the owner of the farm that we had encroached upon. She was a horsey lady, slim and attractive in her wellies, but no-nonsense! She advised that, since it was getting on in the afternoon, we follow her and her young companion down off the hill to the road leading to town where we'd find a pub, could have a drink, and call a taxi to take us to our next BnB!
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