Brian's turn to write - I'll try and be brief (probably not!)
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| In Chipping Campden, Jackie having dropped us off at the start |
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| Paul anxious to get started |
Last week I took a week away to pursue my newish hobby of multi day hikes, my fourth in two years. So far: The Ridgeway (on my own), October 2021; The West Highland Way (with Simon), May 2022; Hadrians Wall (with Simon, Diane and Jackie), May 2023. This time The Cotswold Way with my old mate Paul Tooze. I've known Paul for 20 plus years, he's Brummie born but has lived in Australia for quite a few years and I first met him at a climbing wall in Birmingham. We've climbed and walked together in the UK and in Australia, when we visited 10 years ago and last met up to do the full Ben Nevis horseshoe with Jackie and Nic 5 years ago. He's been on a trip back to the UK since May and returns tomorrow (which may be today or yesterday if I don't get to post it today) on 6th October. During that time he's been doing long multi day backpack trips, carrying his tent, sleeping bag and food in the UK and Majorca in all sorts of weather doing major, well known hikes, putting this trip into the shade.
Here's a complete map of our route. Click the square top right for full screen view then zoom in and out and click on the icons for info of where we stayed with photos
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| At the start |
I told him at the outset that I'm not doing backpacking, its got to be hotels with en suite facilities and, preferably having a restaurant and bar. He agreed, thinking it would be a nice easy finish to his trip. It should have been, except he hadn't got the time for my eight day proposed time frame, I couldn't start before 26/27th September and he flies home on 6th October and needed time for farewells. By getting Jackie to drive us to the start in
Chipping Campden and heading straight off on Tuesday 26th, compressing it to seven days and catching an early bus home from
Bath on 3rd meant we could fit it in. Well, that meant the days were longer distances than I ideally would like, but it was the only option.
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| At the top of the first (of many) hill |
Paul being busy on his hikes I organised it all, broke the days distances into sensible chunks that ended at locations with suitable accommodation, booked them all, bought a
Harvey Cotswold Way map (it has the whole route on one waterproof, lightweight paper map) and got organised with all my gear. We got home from our trip to The Lakes in Big Ted, our motorhome on Sunday evening, unpacked him, got him back in to storage on Monday, bought my snacks and last minute things and got back home in the afternoon ready for Pauls arrival late afternoon. Paul arrived and those five years since we last met fell away and it felt like it was a week ago since we last saw him, joking and laughing almost immediately - this is going to be a good week!
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| Broadway Tower |
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| Farmers pile driving fence posts into position |
Tuesday morning, 26th, I woke him with a cup of tea, something I did everyday on our trip! We were up packed and away early and in
Chipping Campden and ready to start at 10:00am, pretty impressive I thought, until I remembered in my haste to pack that I forgot to bring my charger for the phone. I'll need that if I want to track our route, so off we went on the hunt for a charger, Chipping Campden probably not the best place to look, but needs must. Jackie found one in the Post Office, I hurriedly packed it, we stood and took photos at the start and set off at 10:06 in sunshine, waving Jackie goodbye as she set off back home. Another feature of the walk was I always started off with just a single layer top in the cool of the morning, Paul always with a
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| Yeah - we're on our way! |
thermal top and a fleece. Usual routine, he'd walk for twenty minutes and then has to stop to take his fleece off. 'Start bold, start cold' I told him, would he listen? So every morning same routine, but at least it gave an opportunity for a photo (or other necessities!). I had organised the first day as a shorter day as I wasn't sure how long we would take getting there and starting, so it led us into a false sense of ease as we arrived having walked to the lovely (but quite expensive)
Shenberrow BnB in the tiny village of Stanton at about 3:00pm. Todays stats: 17.36km, 435m of ascent. See it on our short Relive video with more photos:
click here. Memorable moments from the day:
Broadway tower, high up at 313m above the village of the same name, a walk through lovely Broadway with a tea and cake stop at
Tisanes Tea Rooms, before heading up one of the many steep hills on our onward journey. Nice place the Shenberrow BnB, the Cotswold Way passing their front gate and run by a very nice elderly lady who gave us separate rooms and a lovely cooked breakfast the next day. No restaurant though so we walked the short distance through the fabulous Cotswold stone village to the
Mount Inn where we had to wait with other CW walkers for the pub to open. It was there we met the two couples from Perth, Australia, who we saw (and overtook) on another couple of days, until they took a short day on our long day, meaning we leapt ahead of them so didn't see them again.
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| Our usual evening rehydration drinks! |
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| The lovely village of Stanton |
Wednesday morning, 27th, 7:00am alarm, tea provided for Paul and breakfast at 8:00 (our hostess didn't want to provide one earlier) and off we went at 9:13am into an overcast but dry day (Paul with his thermal and fleece on!). Stanton village has a lot of history, it has a twelfth century church and Stanton manor used to be owned by Kathryn Parr, one of Henry VIII's wives (the one who outlived him), but according to the Rector (or whoever he was) of St Peters Church in Stanway, just down the road who came out for a chat as we took photos of
Stanway House, Stanton is a bit of a ghost town, mostly now second homes for the rich who go there infrequently, unlike vibrant Stanway, or so he said. 'Can't stop, we must get on' we said as we realised he'd like a long chat. We did 25.14km today with 630m of ascent (these hills may not be very high but
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| Stanway House |
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| Belas Knap Longbarrow |
they have vicious uphills and there are lots of them!) See our short Relive video with more photos:
click here. Memorable moments from the day:
Belas Knap Long Barrow, a 5,500 year old ancient burial chamber (followed by the only real rain of the walk lasting less than 5 minutes, forcing us to don our waterproof coats - and then taking them off again as it stopped. It may be windy, Storm Agnes, but its also warm and humid). Down into Winchcombe for our tea and cake stop at the highly rated
Tipsy Egg (4.8 out of 5 on Google). Up more steep hills to fabulous views out to the Malverns and eventually on to Cleeve Hill and our accommodation for the night, the
Rising Sun hotel, with expansive views over open countryside. Its a hotel with a bar and restaurant onsite, so no need for extra walking. On the down side it was
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| Inside Belas Knap Longbarrow |
slightly off track and, even worse, downhill. Wherever we leave the track we must rejoin at the same place the next day as we can't be missing any of the track, so we got to almost the highest point before setting off down to take in those fabulous views and some evening comfort. It did, of course, mean our next day would start with a stiff uphill walk to regain what we'd lost, but lets worry about that tomorrow, a comfortable room, restaurant and a bar await us! We weren't disappointed, very nice twin room with en-suite, a great sunset and direct indoor access to a nice bar and restaurant serving good food. It rained overnight, but the forecast tomorrow was good. A good meal, couple of beers for me, white wine for Paul and a nightcap of Baileys. Enjoying this more than sitting in a tent in a howling gale and pouring rain trying to light your burner to cook your dried food Paul?
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| One of the many expansive views we had. The hills in the distance are The Malverns |
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| On Cleeve Hill |
Thursday morning, 28th, we've had the easy start, now we start proper distances: 28.46km, 741m of ascent today (see our short Relive video with photos:
click here), so 6:30 alarm, tea supplied to Paul in bed, as usual, breakfast just after 7:00am, packed and away at 8:16am (Paul still has his thermal and fleece on!). Brutal start, straight up to Cleeve Hill summit at 317m from about 200m, breathing heavily and getting hot quickly (how long do you think Paul lasted before he had to take off his fleece?). It's still windy and cool, but we're hot. There are people playing golf up here in this wind, they must be keen! Great views out over Cheltenham and out to the Malverns on a nice ridge with impressive drop offs over crags in places, a very pleasant stretch. Its a long day today and I couldn't see a tea shop stop on our route but, after several more cheeky hills we walked past
National Star College, a school for under priviledged children. We spied a sign inside pointing to
Star Cafe for tea, cakes and snacks, in we went. Wondering how far into the campus we had to walk a car coming out stopped and told us how good the cafe is - and it was (4.7 out of 5 on Google)! 'Tell your friends' they told us, 'we need more publicity'. Well, we're trying on here. Hot chocolate for me with cream and
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| Now that's a hot chocolate and cake! |
marshmallows, and the cake! Just fabulous! The photos say it all. Too much of a sugar rush, we set off again feeling overfull only to be confronted with another steep hill. Whoever constructed this route picked out every hill possible! They do give great views though. After a few more hills with great views over craggy edges (an old quarry we think), always with a view of Cheltenham (the route circled halway round the city below) we had to leave the track to get to our nights accommodation, the
Royal George at Birdlip. It was a short distance up a road and just at this point we saw our fellow walkers from Perth who had made an error and missed the turnoff. The road had no footpath, a blind summit and fast cars approaching with little notice. This is quite dangerous as we hugged the dirt bank, but
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| A craggy section, but amazing views |
really we had little protection and vowed we were going to find another way back to the track in the following mornings rush hour. Initial impression of the
Royal George was poor in that it was covered in scaffold due to renovation work but it was ok inside and had an onsite restaurant and bar. Another nice big twin room and a reasonable price, then downstairs for dinner and the bar, with a quick chat to our Aussie friends. Paul looked at the menu and said he'll have Nachos to start. Seeing that written down we all know what they are, but the way he pronounced it I had no idea what he said. He pronounced the 'Na' as 'Nar' as in car and the 'o' in 'chos' as in loss. 'What' I said, still not understanding I looked at the menu to see Nachos, pronounced as I say it, the a of 'Na' as in rat and the o in 'Chos' as in 'go'. Trying to get some agreement between us we asked the young waiter how he pronounced it. He used a combination of the two, the 'Na' I say and the 'chos' as Paul said it. I couldn't believe that three people could have different pronunciations of such a simple thing. The waiter told us he'd heard of my pronunciation but not Paul's. 'I'm the customer' Paul told him, quickly he replied 'oh yes, I have heard of that one', we all had a good laugh (followed by a few more drinks). Looking at my photos it appears this is where we finished with Baileys, not the earlier place I mentioned. Still better than a cold tent on a rainy, windy hill with a rehydrated meal, eh Paul?
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| Thanks Cotswold Volunteers, your stonewall building skills are perfect! |
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| A Baileys nightcap in the Royal George Hotel |
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| At a stone CW marker. 47miles from Chipping Campden |
Friday morning, 29th, this is going to be our longest day. It turned out to be 32.03km and 678m of ascent, much longer and higher than I'd estimated (see our Relive video with photos:
click here). One of the reasons it was longer than my estimate was our desire to not walk back down that dangerous road to pick up the track where we left off. Our map showed a footpath out of the rear of the hotel that linked up with the Cotswold Way on a stretch we'd done the previous day. That way we'd only then have to cross that busy road rather than walk along it with no footpath. We decided to ask the waitress serving breakfast if it really was a footpath that linked up to the CW. 'Yes' she said 'but there is a quicker way, if you cross the road at the front and follow another footpath you can join the track further up'. 'No' I said, she looked a bit affronted, I smiled, 'we can't do that as it would mean we'd miss a short section of the trail and we simply can't do that. The extra 3km will do us good!' I wonder how many other CW walkers took the same view! We said goodbye to our Aussie friends this morning, easy day for them, they were only walking to
Painswick, a distance around 15km. That's our intended tea break stop before doing another 17km! Well, at least we'll pass the halfway mark today!
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| Haresfield Beacon |
Did we feel good redoing that bit of track? Not sure about good, but we felt virtuous! On through some woods and muddy track, up more steep hills to great views and, in seemingly no time we were in Painswick and our tea shop stop. It's strange, under other conditions 15km would seem a descent days walk, but because our minds were tuned to the whole route it seemed like just a short walk. We were both on drugs by now, the drug being Ibruprofen, to ease aching knees, feet and legs and, as I hadn't got any and Paul's supply was running low for both of us, I looked for a Chemist in Painswick to top up our supplies. There was one right opposite the tea shop I'd spotted on Google Maps on the High Street, so I went in to buy some. The tea shop, unfortunately, was closed so I asked the pharmacist if he knew of an alternative and he pointed us to
The Painswick Centre which happened to be back along the High Street and down a hill! That's a lot to ask when you're walking 32km! Nevertheless, we did it and had a ball in the cafe, run by two ladies who were great fun with lots of laughs and also great food and drinks (savoury not cake today, we didn't want another sugar rush). We hadn't noticed our muddy boots when we walked in but definitely noticed the mud on the floor where we'd been sitting. Many apologies to the ladies who laughed it off and said they'd talk about us after we'd gone, but thanked us for brightening their day. Another stop at the Chemist as we decided we need more Ibruprofen to cover the remainder of our trip. Onwards and upwards and, yes, it was definitely upwards (did I mention the hills?). Halfway up the
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| So far so good! |
first hill was a proper CW marker, a stone pillar with a white Cotswold Way marker on it (pointing up hill!) and, beneath it a sign indicating only 55 miles to Bath. That's good, we thought, until we looked at the other side that said 47 miles to Chipping Campden. Not yet halfway then! We passed an ancient stone, a curious house with a doll waving at us from an upstairs window, up onto
Haresfield Beacon to more expansive views and, depressingly, a view of the ridge curving round into the distance, behind which was tonights destination in the village of
Leonard Stanley. 'Its round there behind that hill on the right (Maiden Hill)' 'No its not' replied Paul 'its behind those hills much further away'. So its either a long way or a very long way! Lets just press on... We covered the distance pretty quickly, through Standish Wood and then dropped down by the side of Maiden Hill (what, not going up it?) towards Kings Stanley. My map showed the Cotswold Way going alongside Kings Stanley and I'd booked accommodation,
The Hart Hotel, at the only place I could find, in Leonard Stanley, 1.4km to the west and off track! There is, however an optional longer Cotswold Way variant that misses out Kings Stanley, but we're not taking that as A) my map doesn't show it and B) it would take us further away from Leonard Stanley (its already a very long day!). Paul's downloaded map on his All Trails app showed the longer route, but we ignored that, picked the place to leave the track, noting we must come back to the same place and hobbled through Kings Stanley, onto Leonard Stanley and eventually found
The Hart Hotel in the small village.
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| Outside the Hart Hotel. The notice on the door told us what to do |
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| Enjoying our Indian meal |
The door was closed and a message asked us to call a phone number. I did that, no reply, I tried the door, it was open, we walked inside into the bar and restaurant, no-one at home. There's an envelope on the bar with my name on it and inside a key with instructions on our room number, telling us its a self service bar with an honesty box and some takeway menus to get food delivered. How weird is this? Just then the owner rang to explain that they can't get staff and she'd be down in the morning to cook breakfast but just to help ourselves to the bar, make a note of what we'd had and we'd settle up in the morning. Up to the room (two flights of stairs!), shower, double gin and tonic in the garden while we waited for our Indian takeaway to be delivered and then, we found the light switches for the restaurant, found the cutlery, opened the takeaway cartons and had a feast. There were other people staying there but they stayed in their rooms, so we had the restaurant and bar to ourselves. Better have another double GnT then. It was quiet so we decided to search Youtube for some Indian music to go with our curries. Music found, lets dance while we eat. Paul filmed it on his phone then posted it on Facebook linking it to The Hart location, which meant the owners could see it! Next morning as we went in for breakfast we were greeted by laughs from the owner who had seen our dancing efforts of Facebook the previous night.
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| Oh dear, is that the hotel room key you've got there? |
Saturday morning, 30th. Breakfast was at 8:00am, so quite late for us and, by the time we'd had a lot of laughs with The Hart owners and staff time had gone and we didn't get started until 9:30 - far too late for a 29.21km day with 804m of ascent but there was nothing we could do about it (see our Relive video of todays route:
click here). We were delayed further when Paul realised he still had the room key with him, good job we were only 200m away! Retracing our steps back to the exact spot we left the track the previous day, guess what? We had a very steep hill to climb just for a change! Pen Hill, followed by a rising traverse through Stanley Wood and another sharp uphill past another prehistoric
longbarrow, Nympsfield. More hills further on to a fabulous viewpoint, past an old quarry that initially looked very climbable, but was very loose and then, more hills,
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| Nympsfield Longbarrow |
including a separate isolated one that the route made a special detour to go over, Cam Long Down! Our
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| See that hill? You've got to walk over that! |
tea stop today was
Bank Cafe (4.5 on Google) behind the lovely old market building in Dursley town square. Paul's suffering a bit today whereas I'm not feeling too bad, so the hot drink did him good. We didn't eat there as I'd planned another recommended stop at
T&Cakes in North Nibley, but by the time we'd got there it was 4:00pm and we still had a long way (and hills) to go, so abandoned it. The main reason we were there so late is a long deviation we made on
Stinchcombe Hill, round a golf course. There was a short cut, still an official CW route that cut all the hill out, but my map showed the 3.5km longer version round the golf course and out to a viewpoint. I convinced Paul we needed to do it (no other walkers we spoke to did it, they all took the shortcut), but we went out to the
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| The lovely market building in Dursley |
viewpoint and ticked it off! We pressed on past North Nibley, head down up another steep hill in the late afternoon towards the impressive
Tyndale Monument high up with more expansive views. I contemplated walking up the tower but decided against it as my knees might complain. Paul had already decided he wasn't going up and appeared to be struggling a bit. Food and water helped but the latter part of the walk couldn't come quickly enough. Fortunately our accommodation for the night was only just off track. It was
The Swan in Wooton Under Edge, a quite bustling town (it was Saturday night), with several options for evening food, so we didn't book a table in the Swan (mistake!). The Star Inn had a German beer festival going on so were only serving bratwurst and the other places were too far away for us with tired legs so we tried to book a table at the Swan but they were very busy. 8:00pm is the earliest the rather brusque lady told us, no problem, we'll have another drink in the bar whilst watching the Liverpool vs Tottenham game on the TV (we missed the wrongly disallowed goal). 8:00pm came and went and on enquiring we were told we could have a table but service will be slow as they had a table of 30 and they'd just been served their starters (why didn't they tell us that earlier?). Cancelling the table we headed for the chip shop and devoured fish and chips back in our room at the Swan and collapsed in our beds overfull.
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| The Tyndale Monument |
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| At the viewpoint few others see. Its the longer option round Stinchcombe golf course. All people we spoke to took the shorter route cutting out 3.5km |
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| Arriving at Somerset Monument |
Sunday morning, 1st October. 25.84km, 596m of ascent (see our Relive video of todays walk:
click here), slightly shorter, but we were determined to be away as soon as possible after yesterday's late finish so alarm at 6:30 (here's your tea in bed Paul), breakfast just after 7:00am, packed and out by 8:30, an hour earlier than yesterday. We're both feeling it today, not only aches and pains but lacking in energy that peanuts and chocolates seemed unable to fix - its an effort! We passed the nice
Somerset Monument, another Victorian looking tower, a small folly near Woodcock farm and the old
Little Sodbury Roman fort, now just earth banks in a big square. The path went right through the centre and Paul decided he wanted to walk the ramparts, so off he went. I
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| Chilling out for a moment |
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| Paul walks the old earth ramparts of the Roman fort |
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| Oh dear! You didn't see that then Paul (hee-hee) |
followed the path (the official CW). His much longer walk meant I could lie on the grass and relax while he finished it. 'So are you now going to walk back and do that bit of track' I asked him 'otherwise, can you claim to have walked the full route if you don't do it?' You can guess his answer! Even funnier was the sign just after that read 'Keep off the Ramparts', after he'd walked over them! The big problem today was the complete lack of any tea shops on the way, we hoped to find one not marked on the map but sadly no! Onwards over more hills until tired legs got us to the
Best Western Compass Inn at Tormarton. It was a nice place, not close to the town, but had everything on site that we needed. Our room is upstairs the receptionist told us. 'Upstairs' we said. 'It's only about eight steps'. It was fourteen and when you're tired, every step counts! Nice evening meal a few drinks and we collapse into bed.
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| The little folly by Woodcock farm |
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| Crossing over the M4 motorway by Tormarton |
Monday morning, 2nd. Our last day, but there's no let up, 31.08km, 543m of ascent - more hills (see our Relive video of todays walk:
click here)! Early start again 6:30am alarm (here's your tea in bed Paul), breakfast at 7:00, packed and away at 8:23am. A dull, drizzly yet quite warm day. Too warm for waterproofs and a drizzle that just made us damp, not wet. It'll be fine without, let's just go. The views were not that good as the cloud was low as was our energy levels, so again it was an effort. Features of the day were
Dyrham Park, an impressive NT house and extensive gardens, more hills and, thankfully a tea stop at
Ells Kitchen cafe and Takeaway (4.9 out of 5 on Google). It was very welcome and a surprise gathering of chickens, geese and an Emu out back. Our
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| Dyrham Park House |
onward journey took us over the large battle site of
Lansdown, a major conflict between the Royalists and Paliamentarians in the English Civil War of 1643. Various information boards took us through the battle of 5th July and we passed the
monument to Sir Bevill Grenville, the Royalist commander who died on the spot. On past another golf course, another viewpoint with no view, on with the raincoats when drizzle turned briefly to rain, then off again as it was too warm and on to views of what we thought was Bath in the valley below. Over another cheeky hill before descending into not Bath, but Weston - damn! Up yet another steep hill to what we could now see was Bath and downhill. Surely that was the last hill? A quick chat to someone walking their dog uphill 'not far now'
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| Chickens, Geese and an Emu at Ells Kitchen cafe |
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| Thee monument to Sir Bevill Granville at Lansdown |
he said 'just one more hill!' You are joking! No he wasn't, another hill then down into Bath proper, past the
Princess Victoria monument, the impressive
Royal Crescent, the Circus and down to the centre and
Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths, looking for the
finish plaque in the pavement. It's there in front of Bath Abbey, but we can't get to it as tourists are standing on it to take photos of the Abbey. We waited our turn and then took photos of us standing of the plaque. Tourists around looked confused that we weren't interested in the impressive Abbey but more interested in taking photos of the pavement in front! We didn't care, we'd done it! Paul took a detour into a souvenir shop to buy a Cotswold Way fridge magnet (but you won't have a metal door on a fridge in your motorhome that you're going to build Paul - 'don't worry, I have an idea about that'). 'How far to the hotel?' a tired Paul asked '450m' I replied. Good, lets get there...
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| Victoria Obelisk, Bath |
The very nice
Hampton by Hilton Hotel was a bit upmarket for us smelly, muddy people, but they didn't seem to mind. Even better was that they had lifts, so no stairs! A shower and short walk to an
Italian restaurant followed by a nearby pub allowed us to celebrate our achievement.
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| The Royal Crescent, Bath |
Next day, an early start to catch our National Express bus home, via Bristol, followed by a train back to Alvechurch and we were greeted by Jackie with hot pork and stuffing baps for lunch, handshakes hugs and a final drive to take Paul back to his base in Coleshill.
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| The Circus, Bath |
Suddenly it was all over and we hugged goodbye hoping it won't be too long before we meet up again. It's been a great journey and we really bonded together. Farewell Paul, safe journey back to Oz. If I get this posted soon you'll be able to read it in the departure lounge at Heathrow Airport before your long flight home. See you soon buddy, its been a blast!
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| Approaching the end at Bath Abbey |
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| On the finish plaque outside Bath Abbey |
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| So long buddy, its been a great week. Until the next time! |
