30/12/20 - The Last Pub Walk Hurrah at Ross-on-Wye

Distance - 8.25 Miles

Geocaches - 5

Walk Inspiration - Country Walking Magazine July 2019 - Walk 8

I'm so out of practice, I forgot to consult the Good Beer Guide before heading off to Ross-on-Wye.  They're in Tier 2, I'm in Tier 2, all should be good for that most illicit of pleasures - a post walk pint.

9 hours later, we're all in lockdown 3, with the only distinction between the Tiers - whether you can get a hair cut.

The walk is a beauty... but not without its doubts.  How bad are the icy roads going to be?  The early stages are along the Wye but will it still have banks or will I need that Lidl middle aisle snorkel I purchased on a whim, along with presentation pack of six Belgian Beers?

Only one way to find out - get on with it.

I start at Wilton Bridge and although there are signs of flooding, the sub zero temperature has made the mud hard.  Its passable, as I work my way along the river and through some serious agriculture.

Along the Wye

Through the Agriculture

Its a 15 year tradition for Mappiman to walk the Wye Valley - but this has always been around Tintern - where believe it or not, I have managed to find a different route each year.  Wales, I think, is completely shut down and you are only able to walk from your front door. I'm sure my solo walk would have been harmless, but there are only so many hills I am prepared to die on.

But the Wye is a long river and I pick up a splendid section of the Wye Valley Walk at Bulls Hill.  I can see what's coming - lots of up and downs, as I knock off Howle Hill and the highest, Chase Hill.  Lovely, wild walking but few photo opps due to to the trees.

The Wye Valley Walk

Occasional gaps in the trees for the Snow Capped South Malverns

A chance for a breather at Chase Hill Fort and I receive confirmation from base camp that there are two potential good beer guide pubs at my destination disposal.  I even get an image with the details that show the micro pub does not do food, so I know that won't be open.

My final hand-pulled cask is going to be in JDW.

Still, I've got the app, I know it will be a splendid and cavernously safe location and I could smash an all day brunch on a blue plate.

The Last Good Beer Guide Tick in 2020

Mask up, sanitise, find my seat and attempt to spark up the app.  I am approached my the manager.

Who wants to see photo proof of my address.

I won't bore you with all the details and my own opinion but with no traditional ID on me - thank god I had just ordered a Tilly Hat in the sales and had a digital receipt.  Me and the fellow Tier 2 Manager can be friends.

This - plus one time email passcodes from HSBC when ordering through the app and you have to ask whether its worth the trouble.  Maybe sherry-addled Tramps in bus shelters had it right all this time.

A gorgeous Theakstons Old Peculiar and a breakfast that included chips convinced me I am right to fight the good fight.

This was £1.29

I will be telling my grand-kids about pubs and they will scarcely believe that a pint was less than half a costa coffee.

A nice walk past the sights of Ross on Wye (the town is crying out for an Adventure Lab Cache) and I say farewell to another thing I hold dear.  

Football with no fans and VAR is dead.  Quality Ale in fascinating locations filled with good cheer is dead.  Going for a walk in Wales is dead.  Trains.... aeroplanes..... live music...  live comedy....  all dead.

Two questions remain - how much is a bottle of sherry and what time is the Bus to Kidderminster?

Farewell Ross-on-Wye.  Farewell to a way of life.

27/12/20 - Feeling Blessed with a Dodgy Doom at Alvechurch's Red Lion

Distance - 5.25 Miles

Walk Inspiration - Wikiloc

Geocaches - 1

Significant Meals - 1

The Walk

The route was found on Wikiloc - an online walking community - where people upload their favourite routes.  90% of them are nonsense, but this particular one seemed reasonable - starting in a village I've not visited since I developed the Brummie Ring back in 2013.  Nice to see Weebly still hosting my efforts after all these years, when even I haven't logged on to it since about 2014.

It picks up the Birmingham-Worcester Canal, passes Lower Bittell Reservoir and then through Hopwood Kings Norton RFC and bizarrely for a ramble - the Services at J2 of the M42.  Near post walk refreshment could have been a KFC.

Picking up the Birmingham - Worcester Canal at Withybed Green

Brummie Art

Lower Bittell Reservoir

M42 Services

The Pub(s)

For the next three days, Worcestershire remains in Tier 2.  This is about as far as you get in Worcs before it turns into Birmingham, who are suffering with no pubs in Tier 3.

In these strangest of times, I was thinking of visiting Hereford, primarily for Barrells Pub.  This won't be happening as even though they have been dropped back to Tier 2, they are insisting on photo ID with address validation.

Sometimes, even a post walk pint can be too much trouble.  I wondered if I would have any issues in these borderlands.

There is the potential of two pints meals - The Hopwood House is a large Marstons venue where we leave the canal.  On this occasion, I did not fancy a Pedigree.  And it was 11am on a Sunday.

Hopwood House

The Red Lion in Alvechurch is the other choice.  It claims to be a freehouse but my Untappd check in tagged Vintage Inns.  A sign outside welcomes dirty boots and muddy paws and I have two of those items, so enter, check in, sanitise and get a wing to myself.  

Without need to show my papers.

Alvechurch's Red Lion

My request to see if there were any substantial meals that weren't Sunday Lunches was met with "Is it Sunday?".   I confirmed and they seemed genuinely concerned.  Easy to lose track of days in this week between Xmas and New Year, but you hoped the chef was on top of the roast for those who hadn't feasted enough.

There were food alternatives - so I ordered, along with the only hand pull available - the ubiquitous Doom Bar.

The image was worth far more than the pint (too cold, too vinegary) but it would be churlish to complain.

The view was an outstanding nod to past normality, currently denied to millions at the moment - and I am sure to all of us from the next review on the 30/12/20.

One Sip and I was unsure which liquid to put on my chips.  But what a view!

 

26/12/2020 - Stanton, Stanway and Snowshill - The Cotswold Classic

Distance - 9 Miles

Geocaches - 3

Walk Inspiration - Cicerone Walking in the Cotswolds - Walk 3

Wasn't sure whether Storm Bella would put the kibosh on a Boxing Day walk - but as I sit down to write up the blog at 17:00, it still hasn't appeared.

I've done a few variants of this walk that links three of the prettiest Costwold Villages together.  Looking at my DNF logs on a nemesis cache in Stanton, it would appear that I attempt it every four years.

Today, I start at the cricket ground in Stanton, picking up the Cotswold Way heading south, through sheep fields.

Cotswold Way

There's a Church Micro Multi at Stanway - so a bit of number crunching and back the way I came for the first find of the day.  The obligatory photo of the gatehouse to Stanway House.

Stanton Church

Stanway House Gatehouse

Into Lidcome Woods - where its a steep walk on a forest ride, with the gravity pump for the Stanway House fountain still making it relentless boom.

Next up is Snowshill - where we take the first footpath to the left before entering the village properly.  Should you be doing this for the first time and Gloucester not being in Tier 3, its well worth the diversion for the Snowshill Arms Pub, opposite the church.   

The footpath to Great Brockhampton Farm follows the edge of the natural bowl that Snowshill sits on top off.   I had a look at some of my old blogs, where I have the exact same photos.

The Snowshill Bowl

The Cotswold Way is picked up again at Buckland Woods - with more great views, and a lot more people, as families start their traditional Boxing Day walks.

More from the Cotswold Way

And what would these families want after their exertions?  A beautiful British pint in front of a roaring log fire.  As if by design, the route back into Stanton passes the Donnington Brewery Mount Inn - which looks terribly sad, all closed up, car park bolted and its Covid crime scene tent rendered futile.

The Mount

Worcestershire is only a 5 minute drive away - so there could have been post walk refreshment at the Crown and Trumpet in Broadway.  However, with the house awash with left overs, I had already fashioned a significant meal to take with me.

Instead of booze, I'll try alternative entertainment in a phone box.  I tried in 2012.  I failed.  I tried again in 2016 and failed.  I even wrote in my DNF log that I hoped for more success in 2020.

Sometimes in life, its the little things that give the most joy

A Nemesis Cache Conquered.

19/12/20 - Great Witley and Woodbury Hill

Distance - 5 Miles

Geocaches - 1

Walk Inspiration - 100 Walks in Hereford and Worcestershire, Walk 90.

This is the route that possibly got me into walking as a proper hobby.  I've completed it several times, but all in pre-blogging days.  Passing a Turkey Farm that has appeared on Rick Stein's Food Heros and a reindeer park provides the stimulus to resurrect it at Christmas.

In the olden, golden days of walking - before Tiers - this used to start at The Hundred House.  A magnificent coaching house that was too good to be a pub and changed into a nursing home (not a euphemism for Wetherspoons).  If you want a post-ramble drink now, you'll have to drive 4 miles to Dunley and stop at the Dog, where they proudly have a Bass Lamp outside but no Bass.

Fortunately, the parking area opposite remains to start the walk.  Down lanes, past the turkeys at Home Farm (none there this year, either avian flu or covid has got them) and the first climb of the day, a stiff muddy ascent of Woodbury Hill.

We don't laugh at Mrs M when she falls in the mud.  We do hope the views from the Worcestershire Way make up for her soggy bottom.

She made me delete the other photo

We have our 4th year University Student at home with us, as he pays £9k per year to watch zoom calls from my conservatory.  He comes up with a way of avoiding further mishaps, although exclaims that he looks like f***ing Gandalf.

A pair of Gandalfs

Its a long stretch of ridge walking to Walsgrove Hill, which has a descent so perilous it makes the cover of 100 Walks in Herefordshire and Worcestershire.  I never thought I would take unitary counties so seriously, but aren't Herefordshire in Tier 1?  I may campaign for the two to be re-combined, as was Ted Heath's desire.

Walsgrove Hill - aim for the clock tower

The Worcestershire Way is none too shabby as it continues its ridge theme through the grounds of Abberley School, passing the clock tower that can be seen from all over, with reindeer grazing in the fields below.

In normal conditions, the walk would add in Abberley Hill but there is a pedestrian footpath escape route along the A443 for those that have had enough of slopping up and down hills in the mud.

11/12/20 - St Just to Cape Cornwall

Distance - 7 Miles

Geocaches - 8

Walk Inspiration - Trail Magazine, Jan 2021

The final walk of the week.  It always nice to do one that starts from your temporary accommodation's front door - especially when its one from this months edition of a popular magazine.  Trail Magazine have also gone looking for Tier 1 pints.

Across fields to the Cot Valley and Lands End Youth Hostel, labelled by the same people that named London Luton Airport.

Youth Hostel - Not at Lands End

The coast picked up where the footpaths get confusing at Gribba Point.  But don't leave the footpaths, we are reminded, lest you fall down a shaft.

Guide Dog in Training is kept on her lead.

I could bring you plenty of photos of the sea crashing onto the rocks from up on high, but as Cape Cornwall is the star of this walk, it can get all the image glory.  The point where the two bodies of water meet, the only other place in the UK is Cape Wrath.  What may not surprise is that the National Trust are still charging for parking when the cafe and toilets are shut.

Guide Dog Abi, perfecting her modelling skills in case she fails

Cape Cornwall from the South

And from the North

The final stretch of coastal walking for 2020 leads us to the mines at Botallack, where we meet the paths from Tuesday's Walk.  Little by little, I am completing the South West Coastal Path.

Mines of Botallack

Too early for the Queens Arms at Bottalack but we are reasonably sure it's open, as the sandwich board was displayed on the main road.  Another one for the Dubius Good Beer Guide Tick Panel, as this is a proud entry in the 2021 edition.   

Of course, we know what awaits for refreshment at St Just.

Another quality refreshment stop

Star Inn, St Just

The Star Inn

In retrospect, it was a foolhardy attempt to get my first Good Beer Guide Tick since the new Tier Laws were introduced at a pub that has a bar guarded by an electric fence.

The Cornish pub using electric fencing to keep people away from the bar and follow #SocialDistancing rules - but is it switched on?@tamsinmelville asked but Jonny McFadden at the Star Inn in St Just wasn't saying

Listen back to the interview here
⚡️ https://t.co/gmaM5dw7P3 ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/fraEYP1xqC

— BBC Radio Cornwall (@BBCCornwall) July 13, 2020

But at this point in the holiday, I was sure that Tier 1 pubs were open to all and confident enough in my own abilities as a master of disguise that I could get in.  With collar pulled up and full face mask on, I enter, hand santise and wait at the bar for service.

"Where are you from?" booms our pub superstar of Twitter. 

He takes me outside for a little chat and I know from experience that its pointless to argue with publicans, who can refuse service for any reason.  He was polite, but seemed to be accusing me of driving all the way from Worcester just for a pint (half right, I was doing some walking too) and then banged on about how the Government has made Cornwall a target.  

The upshot, he couldn't serve anyone from Tier 2, as he didn't do food.

Having been in Cornwall a week - some, but not all pubs, have taken a similar stance.  It still makes no sense and I still can't believe this was real reason and he just didn't want outsiders in his pub.

As always, Twitter provides a steer.  An interesting interview.  

Landlords have my sympathies trying to interpret the rules but how has going to pubs come to this?  

Cornwall - being the only mainland area of England in Tier 1 - will have its borders patrolled by police to stop people coming to drink in the area's less restricted pubs!

Landlord Jonathan McFadden explains how his establishment will manage any potential influx of outsiders. pic.twitter.com/ca3AOCNRMX

— RT UK (@RTUKnews) December 3, 2020

The Kings Arms

The Kings Arms, St Just

100m away, so all was not lost.  The Kings Arms does food as well as hospitality.

This became our base for the week and does a Sunday Lunch to die for, excellent food at mid week and we were allowed take part in the quiz.

We won and the fact that only one other team of pensioners entered will not stop me feeling proud that my Rage Against the Machine knowledge brought us victory.

We celebrated with a perfect St Austell Proper Job.

10/12/20 - The Castle Inn, St Ives

Geocaches - 1 and an Adventure Lab Cache

Good Beer Guide Tick - #537

We fancied a change from the hardcore rambling, through mud and rain. 

So a day for pootling around.  St Ives (the real one), our destination.

An Adventure Lab Cache will guide us around the town - making us count the platforms at the Station (Spoiler Alert:  1), the windows on the door of the lifeboat station, the age of the oldest pub in town (sure this location will come in handy later) and a couple of chapels.  Super fun.... in perfect weather conditions, better than when you are meant to be on holiday.

Looking down over town 

A view from the final Adventure Lab Cache Location - St Ives Head

Guide Dog in Training Abi enjoying a day off the rambling

I imagine both my blogfans to be not in Tier 1 and therefore expect  me to get on with the pubs.

Pilchard Press Alehouse

The sign carried two bits of worrying news.  It doesn't open until 4pm - when Mrs M likes to be back for her power nap - and their interpretation of the laws are stating that as they don't do food, only Tier 1'ers can come in.

Tierists.

One for the dubious Good Beer Guide Tick Panel...

The Castle, Skinners Penny Come Quick Milk Stout

Success - Good Beer Guide Tick #537

I'd completed my research - I knew this was open and the web site says it does pub grub.  We are keen for a substantial meal, so should have no problems.

There's still a frisson of nervousness, as we queue behind the velvet rope and await instructions from the visored-ones.

Card Only, Sign In on Track and Trace, Hand Sanitisation but they have no food.  Apart from for Guide Dog Abi, who was supplied with copious amounts of dog treats.  Abi is such a door opener, I am tempted to retry the Star Inn at St Just but I am sure that the farmer would just shoot her for worrying his regulars.

Apart from the staff outnumbering us, we have the place to ourselves and sit in prime position - next to the Xmas Tree, with the light streaming in through the coloured glass lead windows.

Ignoring the Doom Bar, I get experimental with a milk stout.

Substantial and Satisfying, a meal in a glass

How I have missed these scenes

... In the company of Snowmen

I could have happily spent the afternoon there.  But we need food.

The Sloop Inn

I would tell you the age of the Sloop Inn but that would be a spoiler for the Cache.  Lets just say it could be troubling Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, The Trip and the Porch House.

Its very old

Genuinely balmy - so we sit outside, under a gazebo, which means that we can listen to this particular Guv vet his potential customers.

The two lads in front of us are from Tier 2.  They are turned away, as they only want drinks.

We are from Tier 2 and we want food.  We are in (or should I say out) with no problem. 

The next group are also from Tier 2 but want to sit at the benches next to the harbour walls.  There is no food served at those benches but they are allowed to have beers and buy pasties from the bakery next door.

Keeping up blogfans?  There is a quiz at the end.

Finally, before we all get bored, our host guesses the next couples Tierage.... "I can tell you are from Cornwall, but can you let me know exactly where please?" he asks.

"Wales" is the reply.

"Oh that's fine then for drinks or food" he makes up on the spot.

I feel like protesting - isn't the whole of Wales in a worse position than Tier 2 - with no alcohol sold at any pub and closure at 6pm?  Twitter was even suggesting that Supermarkets would be booze free in the Principality.

Instead, I keep schtumm, for  I have a plan for the remainder of our trip.

I'll lose all vowels when communicating with Bar Staff.  

"peint o gwrw os gwelwch yn dda", if only I can get my tongue around it.

Instead, I got my tongue around a rather nice club sandwich and a Doom Bar.  In a plastic cup.

09/12/20 - Mousehole to Lamorna Cove

Distance - 5 Miles

Geocaches - 7

Walk Inspiration - Enjoy Cornwall Card 

More coastal walking from Cornwall.

We start in Mousehole - a quaint Cornish fishing village that you wouldn't want to drive through in Summer.

Mousehole

As yesterday, we conquer the inland route first, climbing stiffly past the church to reach Raginnis, Kemyel Drea, Kemyel Crease and Higher Kemyel Farm.  No photos to bring you - it was mainly mud and athleticism at Cornish stiles.

We're quite happy to get away from agricultural land and onto the Coast at Lamorna Cove.  A cafe teases us, all shut up during the out of season.  Not even a bin to dispose of Guide Dog in Training Abi's deposit.

Lonely Lamorna

Navigation is easy on the way back - but the terrain is not.  Plenty of exposure and climbs over slippy rocks, even a waterfall at one point.  We meet other ramblers but its all desperate news. The first lot tell us about the dolphins that they have been spotting but have now disappeared from view.  More worryingly, the second set of ramblers tells us there is a sign outside the Ship Inn banning anyone not from Tier 1 - regardless of their intent to take on a substantial meal.

Kemyel Point and the rugged path

Can the day get any worse?  Of course it can.

We arrive back in Mousehole in a bit of a muddy state - an attempt to clean up Abi on the beach at the harbour is met by two signs - "No Dogs at any Time" and "Warning:  Broken Raw Sewage Pipe".

Mrs M could have been tempted to ignore the first sign but she was not prepared to bathe her in poo.

So, we take her down to a rocky beach outside the harbour wall.  I am instructed to get near the wall, where the retreating tide has created a nice rocky pool to get Abi to have a dunk, once she has finished eating seaweed.  

Disaster strikes - the rocks are slippy and before I know it, it is me that is having the dunk and Abi continues to eat.

I escape - soaked to the bone and inspect the damage.  GPS took the worse of it but phone and camera survived.  

Abi throws up her seaweed lunch.

I am too wet for the Ship or any other establishment and we leave Mousehole, looking for a place to buy rice.

Does our holiday cottage even have an airing cupboard?

It was closed, anyway

08/12/20 - The North Inn, Pendeen and the Tinners Trail

Distance - 5 Miles

Geocaches - 5

Walk Inspiration - AA 1001 Walks - Walk 29

In today's walk, we do the inland section across Carnyorth Common first.  The thought process is that by saving the coastal section last, we may have a chance to get Guide Dog Abi in training clean before entering the pub.

We leave Pendeen, passing our quarry, the North Inn and turning left up past the church and into the wilds.  A first geocache hunt is met with the sound that no middle aged cacher wants to hear.  

"What are you two looking for?"

Usually I lie and say nothing, but Mrs M believes honesty to be the best policy and tells.  I expect my second Cornish row of the week but our interloper simply says "I know where the treasure is", in a accent that he was born to deliver.  

Pressure on, as he leans on his fence and watches my fruitless hunting until he takes pity by offering a hint and then getting bored and telling me exactly where it is.

Log signed and we continue, first to Carn Kenidjack and then huge aerial at Carn Bean.

Looking back over Pendeen from a Geocaching GZ

Carn Kenidjack 

Regardless of weather reports, or the actual weather when you leave base, it would appear that no Cornish walk is complete unless it rains.  Today is no exception and we get a good dousing, just as we complete arguably the most spectacular part.

From Botallack to Levant, we pass through several mine workings.  In nicer conditions, I would have made more of an effort with the plentiful geocaches available.  It's either raining too hard, or goretex clad ramblers are hiding out at the GZs.  

Botallack Mines

Coming through to Levant

More Mines

Like all good plans, our post walk clean up operation on the dog came to nothing.  We are on high cliffs and don't get close to sea.

We're keen for a Good Beer Guide Tick, so Abi gets a surprisingly effective four handed, rub down with two towels.  

If only there was someone who could return the favour to us.

We have to enter the North Inn soggy.

North Inn, when the sun was out

And when the rains came down on our arrival

Thoughts of lunch are dashed, as the chef works only in the evening.  No worries, we are simply delighted to find a pub open all year round, including lunch times and it's always a bonus when the bread is delivered by a white bearded local who has been an extra in all 5 series of Poldark.

Besides, Pendeen has a chipper we can take advantage of later.

We huddle around the log burner that our barlady is valiantly trying to get going, just as the sun comes back out, streams through the window and illuminates my Proper Job like the nectar it is.

Definitely a Proper Job