It’s June, they said. By now, all the mud will have dried up, they said. Clearly, they were wrong.
There were seven on the walk, and we were all fortunately kitted out with appropriate footwear and long trousers. We blazed a trail where no-one had gone before, or at least not since we did our pre-walk. In many places, the long grass was up to or above our waists, and any sense of a footpath had long since been grown over. This, along with more incidences of muddy puddles than we had planned for, made for an interesting and varied walk. We even encountered a curious instance of teleportation whereby, knowing precisely where we were at all times, the phone GPS informed us that we were, indeed, somewhere completely different. We knew this to be the cause, since taking a wrong turning is not something our leader would have done. Thankfully, with the wonders of modern technology, we were able to plot a new and strightforward route to our destination, which ultimately added less than half a mile to the original intended walk length. Overall, we covered about 11 miles.
The earlier part of the walk took us along Monarch’s Way and the Cotswold Way, which were the same path in some places, and the signposts sometimes could often not make up their minds as to which path we were actually on. One interesting landmark we passed was the Somerset Monument just outside Hawkesbury Upton.
At the point where we left the Cotswold Way, and where we stopped for our elevenses, we had a spectacular view of the local countryside in the direction of Wickwar. Further on, we stopped for lunch in a pleasant spot on the side of a hill in a meadow in amoungst woodland. We also saw quite a few deer leaping about in the long grass on the way to this.
A little bit further on, we stumbled across the Sturt Bridge, which is a substantial piece of construction in the middle of nowhere.
Although the walk was a little bit longer than we normally do, and the mud and long grass proved a bit of a challenge, a good time was had by all.