30 March 2013: 34km. Started 09:00. Arrived 17:15.
Challenge one – to escape from Bridgwater. However my Cicerone Guide gave me a route to follow. I would otherwise never have found a series of paths through a myriad of alleyways on a housing estate. Crossing the M5 over a footbridge was an interesting experience as the traffic roared below me at speeds meaning car occupants took minutes to cover the distance that took a whole day for me.
This was actually one of the few occasions when I used the Cicerone book to guide me and, having crossed the motorway, it gave good and clear advice regarding hedge boundaries to follow, where to expect bridges over ditches and locations of stiles. The whole area of the Somerset Levels is criss-crossed with drainage ditches. The main Sedgemoor ditch is huge with a large solid bridge crossing it and many warning signs about currents and “dangers”.
All seemed to be going well until I followed a path diagonally towards a church. The instructions in my book said to go through a garden. I did that as there was no fence and I could see a road ahead. It did seem a bit odd to walk through someone’s garden but I reasoned that many rights of way would have been established before the houses were built. I emerged and was confronted by a middle aged man wearing a “Rotary Club” top and he challenged me “Do you realise that you’ve just walked over private property?” I apologised and offered to go back and walk round by some other way but he said it didn’t matter as it wasn’t his property anyway. Very odd! He asked me where I was going as he could help me to navigate – I explained that I would prefer to navigate myself and he drove off in an apparent huff. I should have said “John o’Groats” or “Dunnet Head” although I suspect that would have provoked an even more negative reaction as it could have been construed as sarcasm rather than truth. At least I had clean clothes on that day so I assume I would have appeared to be reasonably respectable. Never mind – the next few local people who said “Good morning” seemed to be very friendly.
The scenery was rather monotonous, particularly as it was all flat so any change in view was very gradual. There were paths, roads, tracks, large and small drainage ditches and occasionally a pumping station. Some of the fields were full of cattle. There was also a lot of thick mud and deep wheel ruts. In addition to squelchy mud, there were perils of loudly barking dogs at each farmyard. Eventually I decided to stick to a road parallel to the track I had planned to walk along and was rewarded by the sight of a fifteenth century wayside cross.
The very flat walking was prone to make me footsore from recurrently using the same muscle groups. Eventually I needed to sit down but there were no convenient banks, logs or rocks and I just found some damp field grass to rest and enjoy a well-earned snack of chocolate and jelly babies.
The weather was becoming more cold again. Further paths followed with thick wet mud and then I realised with relief that there was only one more path stretch between me and my destination. I braved a walk through a farmyard, reassured by the presence of a farmer who would surely not allow his dogs to attack me. Then I saw a sign in addition to the public footpath sign – “Bull in Field” – but no physical presence of a bull so I passed through without incident. The cattle all appeared to be at the farm.
I trudged slowly and wearily along the pavement to the youth hostel. As I arrived and removed my muddy boots in the porch, I was overtaken in the check-in queue by a couple. They seemed to take forever to make their arrangements as they were unbooked. Eventually I claimed my bed in the dormitory of three bunks, I was warned against eating at the pubs which were apparently expensive. However the reality turned out to be a reasonably priced two course “special” and I was too tired to cook food that I would have in any case needed first to go out to buy.
And so to bed – with an hour shorter in the night due to the change to British Summer Time. This was actually positive for me as it meant that I could arrive later at my overnight stops and it would still be daylight. It removed much of the pressure to request breakfast as early as possible.
Where's Kathryn? 