From: Cheltenham / Gloucester area
Started: 20101001
Finished: 20110301
The Cotswold Voluntary Wardens each year organise a led walk of the Cotswold Way. There are eleven monthly stages of some ten miles each, except for the last one which is shorter to allow time for a celebratory lunch. A small coach took our party of 22 from Winchcombe to the start of each walk, met us for coffee at mid morning, took us to the lunch venue which was invariably a lovely Cotswold pub and brough us back to Winchcombe at the end of the day.
The walk started from Bath, rather than the traditional start from Chipping Campden so that the longer coach journeys could be made during the summer. We were the eighteenth year walking group and it was pleasing that we did most of the walk in 2010, the 40th anniversary of the Cotswold Way. The whole walk was a great experience, with superb views of the Cotswold escarpment ahead and behind, the Severn Valley below and even as far as the Black Mountains in Wales, seeing lovely villages, interesting historical monuments and sites and ancient woods, fields and meadows worked by man for centuries. It was good to see the Cotswolds over the seasons, luckily it was dry on most days, with the walk up from Bath in May being very hot and in December on Cleeve Hill snowing and cold but most exhilarating. Finally, many thanks to all the wardens who led the various individual stages and for the efficient way the whole walk was organised. Paul Kaye