Dowdeswell

Today we hiked 11 miles from Winchcombe to Dowdeswell. We had an elevation gain of 1,400 feet. The morning started off a bit cool and cloudy which was nice because we had a steep climb ahead of us. The sun came out to join us in the afternoon and the high for the day was around 68 again. Another great day for hiking. 

We got to see a sheep dog herd these sheep from one side of the street to a pasture on the other - so fun!

Ancient burial grounds from about 5,000 years ago.

So many delicious berries everywhere! No idea what the first three kinds are, I only ate one blackberry and then proceeded to pick about 20 seeds out of my teeth.

We take LOTS of stretch breaks - never has it felt so good to stretch.

Some ominous looking clouds, but no rain today!

The Cotswold Way runs along this escarpment for much of the way. The elevation we do each day is usually to hike from a town up to the escarpment and then back down again into another town. It's common to having rolling hills on our left and a steep drop-off on the right.

At the top today we had lunch at a very windy golf course and met this man and his RC glider.

 A little montage of bits and pieces of the walk.

The first four nights of our trip we stayed two nights in two different places and were taxied back and forth to our starting point on three of the days. Some of these towns are very small and there's not many places to stay, so this is very common. But the rest of the walk we will be staying in whatever town we walk to and therefore staying just one night at each place. It will be nice not to be taxied around but it will also be a practice of unpacking and packing up efficiently each day. Tomorrow we have another 11 mile day and rain in the morning plus a detour around a bunch of roadwork that's blocking the path, wish us luck!