According to our guidebook, Dursley has been destroyed by urban planners but I saw little evidence of it. It’s just a regular town–not Cotswolds pretty but okay in its way. I’m not sure why it has a bad reputation. We did get lost but that’s not the town’s fault and everyone was quite nice to us. We had a tremendous lunch at the award-winning Old Spot Inn–supposedly the best pub on the Way–and unfortunately it doesn’t serve supper.
We left Middleyard early after another huge breakfast (between full English breakfasts and real ale I’ll have to buy new trousers when I get home) and after a long climb through a forest we arrived at Coaley Peak. There was an amazing view of the Severn River valley, all the way to the Channel, including (according to the sign there) Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth was a indefatigable walker, apparently, unlike me–I get fatigued, but not today, not on this short, 13 kilometre stretch, the shortest of our tour. Then a coursing hawk reminded me of another poet and his sparrowhawk: “I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-/ dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon” and so forth. “The Windhover” has long been one of my favourite poems. I shouldn’t “and so forth” it but typing on the iPad is tiresome and you can always look up the rest. Then it was back down into the valley. Two miles from Dursley, we turned for another stiff climb up to the top of Cam Long Down, and then we had another descent into the town.
We passed another long barrow at Nympsfield. this one was missing its roof so we were able to see how the burial chambers were arranged. We missed another, the strangely named Hetty Pegler’s Tump, because the only path to it leads I. From the road, not the footpath, and we didn’t understand that until it was too late. Christine was disappointed. You can crawl right into the caverns there and I think she wanted to do that. Not me. I’m not going into someone else’s tomb even if their bones were removed by Victorian anthropologists. No thanks. anyway, lesson learned–read the guidebook more carefully.
After lunch, we wandered around Dursley for a while. Christine had coffee and went window-shopping and I looked for reflector tape to put on our raincoats (a motorist stopped a few days ago and told me we were next to invisible on the road). the bicycle shop didn’t have any. they suggested I try the motorcycle shop, which was closed. so no more walking along the road in the rain unless we absolutely can’t help it. Maybe I’ll use my headlamp–that’s why I brought it.
Our B&B is up on another hill south of Dursley. Our directions were rather poor and we had trouble finding it, but it’s very nice. It’s in an Edwardian estate. There are dogs and horses and chickens and our host served us elderflower water and cake. Then we had a chat with another pair of walkers, an English couple who are walking the Cotswold Way in stages, as day trips. it was the first time we’ve had an extended conversation with other walkers and it reminded me a little of the way peregrines talk to each other on the Camino. Neither of us has much of an appetite after our huge lunch, so we’re planning to have a little picnic instead of heading back into town for supper. Then it’ll be an early night, since tomorrow is our longest day of walking on this trip.
