From: Tom: Auburn, Alabama USA; Ed: Fort Payne, Alabama USA
Started: 20180508
Finished: 20180517
First and foremost, we successfully completed the entire 103-mile trail in ten consecutive days from Tuesday, May 8th and finishing by walking into Bath on the afternoon of Thursday, May 17th. When I say, we walked into Bath I really mean we limped into Bath. Ed suffered from nerve issues in his toes and an injured knee. While I suffered from multiple blisters on my left foot. In addition, while the official distance of the Cotswold Way is 103 miles, Ed and I managed to walk it in just over 130 miles. Some of the extra miles were due to our bed and breakfasts being off the official Cotswold Way trail. However, most of the extra miles were due to my lack of navigational skills.
We experienced highs and lows on our ten-day walk. Some of the highs were the beautiful scenery. We walked through ancient Beech Wood forests, through fields of bright yellow canola and acres of wild garlic, blue bells & cowslip. I can still smell the garlic. We walked through valleys and pastures filled with wild flowers in full bloom. The colors were beautiful. Along the way we watched and talked with men sheering sheep, a stonemason building a traditional dry stonewall, and the owner of an estate near Ullenwood who shared some local history of the involvement of the area in the World War II D-Day invasion. We walked through battlefields, golf courses, and past historic Tyndale & Somerset monuments. We visited Abbeys, churches, and graveyards. Ed and I marveled at the ancient burial mounds at Belas Knap. We walked through miles and miles of sheep and cow pastures. Which means we walked through miles and miles of sheep and cow manure mazes. Ed managed to avoid stepping in the gifts left by the sheep and cows while I was not as lucky. On the tenth and final day of our walk, I stepped into a very deep and wet cow “pie”. While Ed failed to warn me about my pending mishap, he did support me after the fact by laughing uncontrollably for hours after my accident. We walked past outstanding examples of Cotswold limestone architecture in the form of quaint stone farmhouses with thatched and stone roofs, beautiful Abbeys, and small town buildings. We stayed in Bed and Breakfasts in rural villages with marvelous hosts. We were served full “English” breakfasts and provided daily packed lunches for our walks. One of the greatest highs was meeting and getting to know other walkers. We met and came to know Nick and Lesel and Dr. Richard and Sally both couples from England, and Dr. Richard and Melinda from the USA. They out walked us nine of the ten days (passing us each day). However, Ed and I beat them to Bath on the tenth day entering the city like
While our highs greatly outnumbered our lows, we still had a few lows. During our journey, Ed managed to lose his eyeglasses, his passport, his wallet, and his boots. While we never found his eyeglasses, Ed did find his passport and wallet in different pockets of his pants other than the pockets where he had originally kept them. After almost destroying his bedroom looking for his boots he was informed that he had left them, like all the B&B guests, in the foyer of the B&B. Another low was my left foot. Early on the walk, I developed some horrible blisters on my left foot. With the help of the doctors, we met on the trail and with Ed’s engineering skills; I managed to walk most of the trail with a bandaged left foot in moderate pain. Ed came up with the plan to cut holes in my shoe to relieve the pressure on the multitude of blisters on my left foot. The plan was much like drilling a hole in someone’s head to relieve the pressure on the brain. It worked. However, this did precipitate the development of a reputation on the trail as the Alabama boys who had cut holes in their shoes.
The walk on the Cotswold Way National Trail was one of the greatest experiences of my 66-year-old life. Ed and I completed a journey that will probably never be topped, at least in my life.