17/04/21 - Ye Olde Swan and the Thames Path at Radcot, Oxfordshire

Distance - 6 Miles

Walk Inspiration - Walking Along the Thames Path - Walk 5

Geocaches - 0

Hallelujah - things are getting back to normal.  We can head off for a walk with a better prospect than just finding tupperware in bushes.  Food can be ordered from a menu.  Cask Ale can be delivered in frothy pints to the parched.

I've been looking forward to this day.  Even the sun shines.

Ye Olde Swan in Radcot commands a perfect position - next to the oldest bridge on the Thames - with a suntrap garden, where the boozers and feeders can watch the sailors clean their vessels or head off paddle boarding.  But how are they coping with the new normal?  We'll find out after the walk.

Ye Olde Swan has everything going for it

The Guidebook discusses how this is a tranquil part of the Thames.  The author is not wrong - few are encountered on land, a handful of mariners are saluted and the majority of life is bovine.  Guide Dog in Training Abi enjoyed the freedom and the chance to show off her skills.  Lets hope she get placed in a City.  Or with a strong swimmer.

Heading up stream, we pass WWII Pill Boxes, the only civilisation at Grafton Lock and reach the wooden bridge at Kelmscott to cross and return on agricultural land on the opposite bank.

Someone else living their best life

 

Former WWII Pill Box Sprouting A Tree

A Bovine Encounter on the Way Back

2 hours fifteen minutes and the frisson of what will be on the menu - liquid and solid - returns.  For reasons I won't bore you with, its been 6 months since I have had a decent steak.  Five days since I have had decent cask (of course, I had to visit my local on the glorious 12th).

We take a shortcut into the garden, but are spotted and frogmarched to the track and trace system.  Passports validated, we are shown to a river side terrace.

This will do us

They are setup with an outside bar and kitchen and ordering is slightly complex in that drinks and food are taken separately.  My inquiry as to the real ales is met with a slightly heart sinking Doom Bar, only to flutter at the mention of an Otter.  Not sure which one, but from the look, I will guess at Otter Bitter.

That's delivered in a disappointing plastic glass, which we hope doesn't stretch to the food.  This comes on a paper plate and as our waitress heads off to fetch cutlery, we hope that isn't plastic.

Fear not, it's a wooden knife and fork.

Have you ever tried to eat a thick steak with a wooden knife?

Have you ever tried to negotiate with a 15 year old waitress that their policy may not be well thought out?

She wasn't budging.  Not even when the wooden fork snapped in half.

Like a Premier League Manager after a disappointing result, I am left with the phrase - we go again next week.

 

10/04/21 - Longdon - Caching, old style and new

Distance - 5.5m

Geocaches - 34 + An Adventure Lab Cache

First Cache

A last weekend before I spend weekdays looking for pubs, Good Beer Accredited or otherwise, that have enough outdoor space to justify emerging from a too long hibernation.  

Longdon, Rugeley is chosen for a two cache trail series.  Recently maintained and with an embedded image that had to be made with Memory Map - it reminded me of how caching trails used to be.

Three hours out in the fresh air - just what was needed.  Only two errors committed - getting told off for casing someones house for robbery at the beginning and then actually entering someone's garden at the end.  I need the pubs to re-open to stop me from getting arrested.

Thanks to andycpuk  for the placement and recent maintenance.  It is appreciated.

Old School Cache Listing with the Route

When a Micro isn't a Church Micro

Dark Lane

Staffordshire, under hail heavy clouds

Farewell Longdon - I'm off for an Adventure Lab Cache

After the traditional round(s), I decide to use a more modern device than my 10 year old GPS to complete an Adventure Lab Cache around Slitting Mill.  Same concept, but you use your phone to find and input information into an App.  I am finding these mildly addictive.  Waterfalls, Pumphouses, a semi detached church were investigated and further proof that after cyclists, fishermen are the most miserable creatures on God's Earth.

A week too early for post ALC refreshments

03/04/21 - The Martley Circular

Distance - 6.5 Miles

A quick blog for a fine walk.  In lockdown, not too much to get the casual reader excited but I'm sure its one I will do again.  After-all, Martley does have a pub - The Crown Inn - although it was hit and miss whether this was trading before the plague.

Parking at St Peter's Church, where you will find the first of the well placed signposts.

These will take you north through fields - sometimes crops, sometimes cows (friendly), sometimes Orchards before crossing the B4197.  A stiff climb to the Worcestershire Way for a fine ridge walk with views out over Herefordshire.

Spot the Guide Dog in Training

Yellow Markers on the Orchard Trunks

Views from the Worcester Way

The real walk highlight, sadly not photographed, is the short section along the river Teme.  The reason for the lack of photos - too busy playing in the water with Guide Dog in Training Abi, who loved the walk as much as us.

02/04/21 - Symonds Yat and the Wye Valley

Distance - 11.5 Miles

Geocaches - 3

Walk Inspiration - 100 Walks in Gloucestershire, Walk 

I know I've walked from Symonds Yat in the past, yet for some reason, I have never blogged from here.  Two potential reasons for this - 1) it was pre-blogging days or 2) I was still in shock from the parking fees.  

£5 for 4 hours that required actual cash - which no-one has seen for at least 12 months. The question is, will I be able to complete 11.5 miles in 4 hours?

At least there will be no pubs to distract.

It's a endless steep drop from the car park, down the east side on the Yat, with the smell of garlic in my nostrils. Worth it for the peace and tranquility when the valley floor is reached.

Pickingup the Wye Valley

East walking along a disused railway - view unspoiled until we reach the light industry opposite the out of bounds Welsh Bicknor.  

Navigational skills at the fore as I skirt the western edges of Lydbrook to pick up the Forest of Dean.

I bring you trees

My original plan was to park at the Globe Inn in Christchurch but in the circumstances, this would have been a touch cheeky.  Instead, I get to see what I could of won, as I wander through the deserted streets, populated only by weird scarecrows.  And the Church is called Salem.

An End Point in Happier Times

That's your lot... I forgot to photo the scarecrows

Back into the Forest to drop down and pick up the river again, for the three geocaches available on route.  

The stiff climb to Symonds Yat awaits and I make it back to the car with the Relive App telling me there is 4 minutes left on my ticket.  

A braver man than me would have waited for a bacon and brie baguette from the cafe.  

But if they charge a lady for parking, what would the fines be like?

Forest of Dean

Back to the Wye

A final farewell to the set of NetFlix's "Sex Education"