03/02/18 - The Ebrington Arms - Puddings and Geocaching

Distance - 6.3 Miles
Geocaches - 23


There's a good reason why we are Goretexing up on a miserable Saturday Morning in the part of the North Cotswolds where Gloucestershire meets Warwickshire.

We need to walk off this.

What did you have for tea?

It's a peculiarly British pasttime of taking your loved one to a fine country hotel and stuffing 7 puddings down her, while a master of ceremonies urges you on with the cry of "..... served with lashings of custard".

We'd never heard of pudding hangovers before.  We know all about them now.

The only thing to do is put on waterproofs and head out into the mire.

There's a trio of fine villages to base our walk from, Mickleton and Ilmington were duly considered but Ebrington has the Good Beer Guide Pub and has not been previously discovered.  Plentiful geocaches mean that we have something to distract from the weather.

Views on another day

We're actually attempting two cache trails here but don't let on to Mrs M.  She's great at finding them but does question her sanity when there are too many.  The first cache trail is from my most found Cache Owner, HKMHILL and the 2nd by The Sundowner.  If you're new to Geocaching and fancy a go, you could do a lot worse than starting here.   A good mixture of hides, sizes and a particularly delightful field puzzle, that proves that even after 7,500 finds, you can come across something new.

Thanks COs.  Great caching.

Photo required of Log too wet to sign

Mrs M, bored now, refuses to acknowledge the king of cache containers

Walking wise, we have good yet muddy paths with the figure of 8 route dominated by Foxcote House - a spectacular 1740's manor house bought and renovated by the man who runs Victoria Secrets and used solely to satisfy his desire for pheasant shooting.

Sell a lot of ladies pants and you get to own this

Back to Ebrington and an award winning pub.  The Times festoons fine praise indeed.  CAMRA had it as a 2015 and 2016 Pub of the Year finalist.

High Praise

17th Century Cotswold Pub

Of course, its totally gorgeous.  The staff are a delight who welcome you on arrival and after you've made use of the facilities.  The food, even to Geocachers who had vowed a fasting day, smelled wonderful.  And there was even something new to try beer wise.

Who's ever heard of Yubby?

Yubbies all round

Its brewed, just for this pub, at the North Cotswold's Brewery.  If there had been a signal or if they'd trusted an outsider with the WiFi Password, there would have been a rare UnTappd check in to delight my American followers.

A fine pint of English Bitter.  They sold presentation packs for a price that isn't going to trouble Tesco Multi Purchase offers.

One now resides in my outdoor fridge.