We did this walk with our friend Ellie, on a bright, fresh day in march. It was descibed in the Evening Post handout where we found the walk as 'Geoff's favourite walk.'
The 'Geoff', is of course Geoff Mullet, a deeply unpromising name for a hugely influential presence in our lives. He's authored two books on local walks (Walk West, and Walk West Again), and we have spent a lot of time in the past few years working our way through the books.
There's nothing systematic or nerdish about this - some we have done several times and some we've chosen to ignore as they seem unpromising. More of this elsewhere...
... the reason that i've chosen to put this walk in as the first in the blog is that i was sorting through some photos on the computer this morning, and found some good ones of this walk. The picture above is at the start of the walk, with Box Tunnel (must be important - note capitals) behind ellie (left) and margaret. It's Brunel, it's (quite) famous, and it's still a major part of the southwest rail network today.
The early part of the walk was along the banks of a river, and in the way it wound through undulating countryside it was just about as lovely as a river could be. This photo does it little justice!
Whilst walking along the river, we came across a small (2) working party, seemingly stripping long branches from the riverside trees. After a small discussion as to what they were doing (collecting materials for basket-weaving was my contribution), we approached them to ask. It turned out that they were pruning back the overhanging alders and osiers, which would otherwise clog the river. They were friendly and very well-to-do, and we surmised that one of them was the landowner. The sort of encounter which makes walking so enjoyable.
Other noticeable points were the welcome lunchtime beer in the Quarryman, whilst furtively eating our picnic in their front garden - see photo!
The last third of the walk was significantly uphill - rather a strain for one member of our party who was rather puffed! Hard to imagine, overall, a more pleasant walk, with variety, beauty, and challenge. Very muddy indeed in places, but these were few and short!
