Important Info

Planned kilometres: 32 (cummulative 521)

Kilometres walked: 32 (cummulative 555)

% Completed (based on 1800km trip): 30.8%

Weather: Sunshine & blue skies

Pubs visited: Rose & Crown

Pints: 0 (cummulative 60)

Kms per pint: 9.3

Blisters: 0 (cummulative 2)

 

Tewkesbury to Worcester

Sun’s shining again and the first task of the day is to get some sunglasses to replace the ones lost yesterday. I thought this would be a tough ask as I was in a small town and it was Bank holiday Monday, however as I was walking out of town I passed a Poundland store and found a set of sunglasses for the exorbitant price of one pound.

Today was continuing to walk along Severn Way and the first part was through paddocks that lots of cows had been moved through, so I spent the first hour carefully walking through a cow shit minefield and its associated bouquet.

 

Early today I discovered that my digital camera has died. I took a couple of photos on the way out of town and when I checked later they were just fuzzy white blur, so iPhone is now my main camera.

 

I wore my Gaiters for the first time today. I was beginning to think they were a waste of money and I should have posted them back to London, however they were worth every penny today. A lot of the path was through very high grass and the gaiters ensured that water didn’t go down the top of my boots and protected my legs from stinging plants. The dew on the grass did finally soak through my boats and by midday I had to do a sock change as feet were soaked inside the boots.

Trail passed under the M50 motorway which was the only time during the day that I heard significant traffic noise.

I came into the town of Upton on Severn to find Morris dancing happening in the street. The Severn folk festival had been on Saturday/Sunday and today was the wind up and dancing was done by dancers from a mixture of groups that had remained in town for some continuing celebrations.

After walking along the Severn Way and seeing hardly anyone else, I stopped in at the Rose and Crown pub for a couple of pints of lemonade as I was so hot and parched. The pub was very old with low ceiling and my pack hit the roof as I walked in the door, so I had to take it off and when I was standing at the bar ordering, I had to stoop so my head didn’t hit the roof.

I stopped later in the day at a little town store to buy ice-block and cold drink and was talking to some locals in line who asking me where I was heading, what I was doing, etc and all wished me good luck as I left the store. I sat on a grass verge and had a break and to cool down and as I was walking out of town, one of the blokes that was in line in the store came out of his house and asked me if I wanted a can of cold beer to keep me cool for the rest of my walk to Worcester. I didn;t take him up on the offer.

 

Today’s walk left me shattered and at the end of the day I was sitting in my hotel room with very sore feet, tight muscles in my back and a bruised/swollen right thumb (no idea how I hurt my thumb).

 

When I tried to blog later that night, I found out that the battery pack for my surface pro had also died and computer battery has no power left. That has left the iPhone as my camera, computer and mapping tool. No a good day for me and technology.

 

During the trip I have only been booking accommodation in the morning for that night, so I can check the weather and how I feel (and how far I think I want to walk). This was the first time I booked using the iPhone and its not ideal.