THE WEST mendip way -21 aug, 2018
Day 17 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Wookey to Warren Farm
Distance: 23km
Cumulative distance: 417km
Apologies while I think of it for the dodgy distances I keep giving you. I have an app in my phone that’s tracking my steps which seems to be pretty accurate on the step front, but isn’t so good on converting them to kilometres. As in it’ll tell me I’ve done 20km when quite clearly I’ve done 6-7km more than that, so it’s isn’t too reliable. I’ll try and figure out a way to make it more accurate anyway.
I slept in a wee bit again before packing up and heading back past the pub I was at last night, and then down to Wookey Hole from where I ducked off road and picked up the West Mendip Way. This is an 80km trail that was opened in 1979 linking Wells (just east of where I found myself this morning) to Weston Super Mare over on the coast, south and west of Bristol. My section took me uphill through a wet forest which was the toughest slog I’d had for a few days, and provided me a very nice view above Ebor gorge and back out over the flatter parts of Somerset. I walked a bit further through the forest and then across a very damp and misty field which revealed, for the first time, the major flaw in my new walking boots. The buggers weren’t waterproof! And the left one was already starting to tear away at the sole after not even a week. By the time I’d crossed the field both boots were soaked, and so were my socks and my feet. It was nice walking otherwise but I realised instantly this was going to be a bit of a recurring issue. Merrell will certainly be receiving a strongly worded email at some point – I suspect I’ll end up getting a new pair of boots further down the track and turfing these before the weather turns. That will likely bring with it a fresh set of blisters, but it’ll be better than tramping around in wet feet all the time, hopefully. Anyway I’ll cross that bridge when it comes.
There were more fields between myself and Priddy where I stopped for an early lunch, and then I pushed onto Cheddar. This was a really nice stretch, at one point I came over a rise and a huge stretch of lower Somerset unfurled before me. It was a sensational view and just grew in size as I continued walking towards it. The track was well waymarked thankfully, and took me past a few herds of cattle including some huuuuge bulls which looked to be in magnificent nick. I also passed two elderly ladies, one of who told me she’d walked Land’s End to John O’Groats in her younger years in just 55 days! Good grief, she was putting me to shame. I descended sharply into Cheddar and went for a quick shop before sitting on a bench and having a spell. I’d been here before, randomly enough, with Fi on her birthday during last year’s Women’s Cricket World Cup. It happened to be between Taunton (where the Aussie girls had just trained) and Cadbury House where we were staying on the outskirts of Bristol. So I bypassed the cheese factory and all the rest of it, and walked up through town and then up a trail leading to the top of the gorge. It’s quite a stunning place, and the gorge has a maximum depth of 137m making it the biggest in the UK, or England, or Somerset, or the Mendip Hills or Cheddar or something. I’ll have to check that but I’m pretty sure it’s the biggest something. I slogged my way up the hill and was rewarded with plenty of stunning views along the way. But my interest was in pressing on to the next campsite – I’d found a place a bit further along on Google Maps which looked like it offered camping.
After the up came the down, and I had to forge on over a stack of very slippery rocks to head back to the road. These were steep, and a little bit treacherous for a lad with a big backpack and sore feet, but I managed to keep my feet and avoid a wee tumble. Once I crossed the road I walked through another fine section of forest, then turned off the path and went hunting for the shortcut to this farm which was marked on the map. There was no shortcut that I could find, so I ended up walking a fair way past it to another road, then turning right and heading maybe a kilometre up the hill before finally coming to its driveway. I walked in and got chatting to the son of the farmer, who told me it was a glamping place but that I could go and pitch up in the field opposite. I offered him some money but he said not to worry, that his dad would come and sort me out. He then gave me the code to the shower block and offered me a little tour of the place before I went and pitched up in a field of sheep. It was here I met Terry who was packing down one of his many powered hang gliders having been up in the air earlier that afternoon. I’d actually seen him as I was walking to the farm from Cheddar Gorge. He made me a cup of tea, and after I’d set myself up he showed me all of his hang gliders, then told me more about that sport and the motorcycle rallies he participates in across the UK and Europe. He rents a shed from the farmer to store his toys and geez he had an impressive collection! What a top bloke, I could’ve listened to him for hours.
