2/01/11 - First walk of the year - Malvern.

Distance - 8.5 Miles
Route - Oct 2010 Country Walking
Geocaches found - 5
First Geocache

You cannot go wrong with the malverns - there are myriad paths, fantastic views and you can do as much or as little as you want.  I followed the route from Oct 10 Country Walking Magazine, which was very straightforward.

Primarily, this was a walk, rather than a cache hunt.  I have found a lot of the Malvern caches over the year and just wanted to get out for a good, local, blow the cobwebs out type of walk.

Parked in the street near the station and headed up though the town.  I like Malvern a lot and one day, I will come with money for the outdoor shops and the award winning sausages at the butchers in the centre of town.  Found the first cache under a bench by the Elgar Monument.

Then head up the tsteps to St Anne's well and another cache.  Its a bit of a slog up to the top paths, but once on board, I then had four miles of very easy ridge walking with fantastic views East and West and South across the remainder of the hills.

Molly looking East - The route to the south ahead.

I am walking all the way down to the foot of British Camp.  Molly meets a 2 year old labradoodle that looks identical to her, but with much more hair.  Almost before and after shots.

At the Malvern Hotel, I bear west to drop down on the farms and green lanes to Colwell Stone, picking up the Worcestershire Way along the Brockhill Road.  Being below the hills provides the opportunity to view them from a different angle and see all the walkers silhouetted on the ridge that I have just come from.



The hills from ground level on the way to Colwell Stone.

Cache three of the day is a diversion down a nice little path of Brockhill Road.  Never would have come down here if it wasn't for caches.  Having gone down, I know that I have to go back up and over the hills to the car.  A bit of a slog up to the gap between Sugarloaf Hill and Worcestershire beacon (taking in cache 4 at the road at the bottom).

Then I drop back down to St Annes Well.  Go to fill up my water bottle at the always running spout - when I get the lid off the bottle, the flow instantly stops.  The people behind me say that they have never seen this happen before and I hope I don't get the blame for breaking it.

Back down through the town and to the car where I drive around the corner for a nice Sidetracked cache at the station.  Much better than the usual ones!

All in all an excellent walk in a well known area for me.  Nice to be out on a walk, rather than just hunting caches.