Post Tagged with: "hilly"

Welcome to our third featured walk which is a 4.9 mile circular hike through Ebbor Gorge on the West Mendip Way.  Full instructions are below.

This walk starts from Ebbor Gorge car park and heads down into the reserve before diverting into Wookey Hole village. From there it goes across fields and through woods before returning to the nature reserve and back to the car park. A challenging walk with steep flights of steps and climbs up hills but well worth the effort for the far reaching views across the Somerset countryside. The limekilns and rock formations are an interesting addition.

This is now the offical route for the walk we will be leading on 30.7.17 It’s a 5 mile circular route with quite a bit of climbing (worth it for the spectacular views) and lots of woodland steps.  For more photos of this route see our previous post and if you want to join the walk  see here for details

Swainswick

This walk started from Swainswick and involved some steep climbing through fields which would have given lovely views if it wasn’t for the drizzle and mist! It then went through the village of Woolley with its lovely church and onward around the redeveloped Ensleigh site and returning to Swainswick through the village of Charlcombe. A very attractive pheasant sitting atop a dead tree was a pleasing sight.

4.23 mile circular walk starting and ending at Swainswick

the hills were shrouded in mist

Avoncliff

Click here to see the details of the walk > Garmin Connect.

Another rather cloudy summers day but at least the rain held off until the afternoon. The walk started from Avoncliff and went along the canal before going through the village of Murhill. Then it was back to the canal and along the towpath and returning through Conkwell wood which was quite a hard climb but nice and shady. The wood was full of Hart’s Tongue fern which looked gloriously bright and shiny in the darkness of the wood. The return to Avoncliff was through Avonpark and the the village of Winsley. The distant views of the White Horse were a treat and it was good to see many wild flowers – pyramidal orchids, scabious, hypericum to name but a few.

Hart’s Tongue Fern in the woods and the Westbury White Horse in the distance.

Animal highlights of today’s walk – horses:

The area has many stables which house some very fancy looking horses.

This is a really varied route – through woods, bridle paths, country lanes. It’s quite hilly so there would usually be good views but today the weather was dank and foggy so we couldn’t see very far. For the first half mile we were joined by a sweet little black kitten who seemed to think we were headed somewhere interesting. There wasn’t much else in the way of ‘wild’ life – probably all sheltering from the cold.
After we finished walking we popped in to the lovely farm shop where everything looked delicious on account of being hungry after the walk – came away with some blackcurrant shortbread which lasted about 5 minutes after getting home.

Newton St Loe – the first ramble of 2015.

Stourhead is, of course, well known for its landscaped gardens but this walk took us away from the crowds and into some beautiful countryside. It was a glorious day for walking despite the wind on the top of the hills. Lunch was eaten in the shelter of castle hill overlooking the small town of Mere which was looking lovely in the sunshine. The walk over we collapsed with a lovely cuppa in the NT cafe at Stourhead.