THE COTSWOLD WAY 4 - 8 Oct 2009
Having now set myself the challenge of walking all 15 National Trails I then decided it should be a sponsored event just so that I couldn't weasel out of it when the going got tougher.
My next issue was actually finding enough time off to fit them all in. Work have actually been very good to me; once I explained I was going to be walking miles and miles, mostly in the rain, carrying a huge rucksack and sleeping in a tiny tent they were more than happy to let me take my leave as and when. I suspect if I'd asked for time off to find a cure for cancer I'd have been given short shrift. Such is the military I guess....
Anyway, the handy short notice cancellation of an exercise left enough of a gap in my diary for me to quickly squeeze in 4.5 days of walking and complete The Cotswold Way. Again, my preparation involved filling my rucksack to ridiculous levels and then trying to erase the painful memories of the first walk. It soon became apparent that I had indeed over-packed and that my trusty walking boots which saw me up the few miles of Kilimanjaro were in fact not the best choice for smashing out the miles along UK paths.
The terrain this time was a lot more strenuous. 102 miles up and down the Cotswold Escarpment with views that I imagine must be tremendous. I say imagine as it chucked it down with rain a lot of the walk and the hill tops were swathed in low cloud most of the time. Being a local to the area it was interesting passing through areas that I knew already albeit only from the air or via a car window. The final few miles into Bath were very pleasant although once again my feet were giving me grief. On reflection this was another pleasant but not massively challenging walk. I did learn a lot about sensible rucksack packing and a little bit about footwear suitability.
A visit to Cotswold Camping for new boots was definitely now in order....
