Cotswold Way

Stage eight - Wotton under Edge to Old Sodbury After a hiatus, we are back to the task in hand... Stage eight saw us up at the crack of... 0540, in order to be out the door by 0630, in order to park the car in Stroud and walk to Merrywalks bus stop by 0710 for the bus to Dursley, which in turn would link to Wooton-under-Edge, our start point. A 'West Gold Group Dayrider' from the Stagecoach app for £15.50 seemed to cover the travel for the day for all three of us, and the free parking in Stratford Park in Stroud helped, with only a ten minute walk to the bus stand. After a short ride to Dursley, we headed to Sainsbury's, being the only place likely to be open at about 0730, where we bought pastries and a much needed coffee, along with some snacks for the walk. From the get-go, we knew we'd have to keep up a reasonably quick pace in order to reach our destination before the bus arrived at the Dog Inn in Old Sodbury. Soon off the bus and on our merry way and the day was a...

 Stage six - Edge (Maitlands wood) to Dursley One day, four sites, zero flights Cotswold Way stage 6 - Maitland Wood to Dursley Two months on, and considerably warmer weather and our story continues. We'd eyed up our next day to continue the walk: Probability of sun; fair to good; not too hot; and most importantly, likelihood of rain; nil. The best bit was, we could catch the bus from the end of our road and be at the start point within 15 minutes. Within minutes we were on our way... As seems to be the 'norm' now, we began the day with... giving up a considerable amount of height. The route from Maitland's wood descends past Stockend, affording a glimpse through the trees along the way, of the view to the severn and Forest of Dean beyond. It was quite chilly at this point, as the warming of the morning sun were blocked by the hill on our east. Still, we were kept warm enough by our exertions. Soon, we were approaching and then crossing the road up to Haresfield Beacon,...