Cotswalds

Winchcombe to Broadway

This morning we got up at a decent time all fired up to go to the Cotswalds for lots of walking. We drove for about 2 hours until we reached Winchcombe. Along the way the weather looked dull, and there were a few spots of rain. However this did not dampen our mood too much. However as soon as we got out of the car we felt the cold. Gosia was very glad she was not wearing her strappy top as planned, and I was wishing I had worn a tracksuit instead of my shorts.

It was only spitting as we left the car in Winchcombe car park and started our walk along the Cotswolds Way. We found the start of the walk very easily. But once we found it we had to make a decision on which direction we should take along the path. I immediately pointed in one direction so we started walking that way. Gosia had her doubts about the direction and so she finally convinced me to consult the map. In the end we worked out that we had started off the wrong way! Luckily we had only gone a few hundred metres by that stage.

Once on the way (and in the correct direction), we took in the nice English countryside. There were rolling hills with sheep and cattle grazing on them. There were nice stone fences as well as hedge fences. We also had to jump over special gates between each field on the farms. On the negative side, we always had to look where we were walking as otherwise we might step onto a 'landmine'. Also it was raining a little bit and the ground was already saturated. This meant that everything was extremely muddy. At one stage Gosia stepped into a puddle thinking it was shallow. However her whole foot disappeared into the mud under the puddle. She was not at all impressed! To add to her misery, the heavens opened up a couple of times and we got totally saturated despite wearing some waterproofs. At least Gosia's shoe was not the only thing to be wet. We were both walking with squelching sounds coming from our shoes on every step. It seemed like we had been walking all day by the time we reached Stanton. In fact it had only been about 3 hours of solid walking equating to 7 or 8 miles. In Stanton we decided we had had enough of the rain and so we found the local pub to dry off in. There we also rang the local bus company to see if we could catch the bus the rest of the way. Luckily there was a bus in about one hour, so we decided to pike from walking.

Stanton seemed like a beautiful village with typical Cotswolds stone cottages. There was a fair in town which was completely rained out. Some of the locals were putting on brave faces and did not even use umbrellas, but the streets were pretty deserted. The local pub was definitely the place to be - especially because it had hot coffee. Jon decided to change some of his wet clothes in the toilets with new ones from the backpack. However his hands were so cold that they would not work properly, with the result of his clean, dry socks ending up accidentally falling into the toilet!!!

We caught the bus back to Winchcombe and picked up the car. It was only about a half hour drive to our accommodation in Broadway - a nice B&B amidst typical Cotswalds cottages. The first thing we did there was have a hot bath. It was fantastic. At last we were warm again. To keep us warm we had the blow heater on for a while despite the fact that it was almost summer!!

Next we went out for a luxurious pub meal just down the road. We decided to walk there and luckily this time it did not rain. At the local pub we had a bottle of Australian Red (Lindemanns) with a huge sirloin steak each. If that wasn't enough we decided to finish off with a dessert each (we decided we needed some strength so we would not succumb to a cold - well that was the excuse anyway). Needless to say we were totally full by the end of it. Next we went back to the B&B and played scrabble while half watching a bit of Four Weddings and a Funeral. It was a very comfortable end to an eventful and straining day!

Broadway to Chipping Cambden

We had a large English breakfast at the B&B, complete with bacon and eggs. After breakfast we went for a 2 hour walk around the area. First we went to an 11th century church which was holding a flower exhibition. Then a long uphill walk to the highest building in the Cotswolds - an old tower. Once we had finished looking at the tower and catching our breath, we walked along the Cotswalds way back to the Broadway High St. The weather was heaps better than yesterday - we even became hot when walking up the hill - and there was no rain.

We were planning on having a devonshire tea in town, however after such a huge breakfast we decided to wait until later. Instead we drove to Chippen Cambden about 4 miles away. This was meant to be our final walking destination, but we were put off walking too much after the previous day's effort. The town was nice but we decided that we liked Broadway better. Maybe our judgement was coloured by the fact that we could not get our devonshire tea as every tea room was serving lunch only and would not allow us to sit down and have just a pot of tea! We did manage to find a place to get an icecream, so things could have been worse. We decided that we had seen enough of the Cotswolds for one weekend and so we drove home about 2pm.