|
Journal: |
Had a long night's sleep (10+ hours) and got ready to leave
before having breakfast at 8:30am. The girl doing the cooking
is planning a trip to Australia and was chatting and quizzing me
last night about where to go. It would have been hard to get
more English breakfast on my plate this morning!
I wandered from the hostel through the small Cheddar shopping
street to the Cheddar Gorge entry road where there were lots of
tourist shops and the Outdoors Store where I planned to buy some new
socks. I arrived a bit early for their 10am opening and found
a giftshop that sold books and bought myself a new novel to read,
having finished my first, then sat in the sun drinking a Diet Coke
watching the world go by. The store opened at 10am and after
quite a bit of consideration, I bought two pairs of inner socks and
one mid-weight outer pair, and immediately put both inners on under
my existing Thorlos. There was no magical improvement (there
are still plenty of healing wounds), but it did feel a little less
coarse on my feet. So it was not until after 10:30am that I
began hiking and that started with a solid climb up one side of the
Cheddar Gorge. It was sunny and mild, a perfect day for hiking
and views and I enjoyed the nice conditions, as were a number of
other hikers. At the top of the Gorge my path turned to follow
the crest of The Mendips, another tree-less low range of hills
covered in grass and heath, and enjoyed more great views as well as
some very pretty woodland paths in the some of the valleys.
My late start meant that I had little chance of reaching today's
guide-book target, but I also knew that between The Mendips and the
Severn Bridge, there were not any scenic "must sees", so during my
break at about 12:30pm atop the moors, I spread my maps out in the
sun and worked out a back roads and footpaths way to get where I
needed to be in a semi-direct way. Then it was descending to
the north from The Mendips, passing some cave entrances on the way
(with warnings) and an abseiling school. The rest of the
afternoon, with increasingly sore feet (but maybe no new blisters)
passed pleasantly enough as my course took me through some small
villages and some quiet woods and over some low hills until I
reached Blackwell Green at about 7:15pm. I had hoped there
might be a B&B there but no such luck. I decided to grab
dinner in the village pub, which I did, then continue walking until
I reached a small wood I could see on the map. I didn't reach
there until 8:45pm, by which time light was starting to fade.
It's a very small wood with cars passing nearby and, I suspect, is
where locals will be walking their dogs in the morning.
However, beggars can't be choosers, and I quickly found myself a
spot to set up camp and was very pleased to get my shoes and socks
off and crawl into bed.
It will be a longish day to get to Chepstow (across the Severn
Bridge) tomorrow, but I may try to get there and then may take a day
off to see if that lets some of the wounds heal.
|
