With people doing their own thing, illness and the weather there was a slim turnout today, but our little trio wanted the fresh air so off we went anyway.
Nutnells Wood is just the other side of the M5 and easy to get to from Knowle. Having parked in a rough layby we were soon off, recounting tales of our reccie walk where we met about 200 runners coming the other way. (It was very good natured and the runners seemed surprisingly happy and smiley). Being autumn, the paths were quite muddy and today there was a good drizzle at times, but we stayed warm and upright.
After a long walk through the woods we joined a path through a valley near Dodford, looking down into the stream. In the summer it was leafy, in the autumn it was golden leaves, now it was bare trees, but still attractive.
After we emerged towards the village of Bournheath we saw a buzzard posing for us. Latter on there was a fine collection of goats, and while we are on our West Midlands safari, we should include our Alpaca and sheep sightings.
We then turned towards the exotically named Royal Content Farm and today were able to tell Adrian how if it wasn’t covered in mist, he’d be able to see the Malverns. Here are some pictures we took earlier in the year!
We stopped just before Pepper Wood for a bite to eat. We’d struggled to find a good stopping place to accommodate a significant group of people, but it turned out we had an ideal stopping place for three.
After Pepper Wood we circled through a couple of farms. Most farmers are wonderful custodians of the land and have no issue with ensuring footpaths and bridal ways are in good condition. However, we do find the horse-owning community often disregard rights of way, often placing electric fences without regard to the run of the footpath. On this walk, the riders had used the footpath as part of an exercise circuit and completely destroyed the surface which was on a steep slope, slippery and the only support was an electric fence (which I can report works very well). Land owners have a duty to ensure that footpaths are in useable condition (the technical term for a footpath that is difficult or impossible to use is “out of repair”). We’ve reported this issue to the local council responsible for enforcement. As the footpath was obstructed, we were entitled to take a diversion off the path. Fortunately in this case, a short diversion allowed us to pick up a track for a short way and then re-join the right of way.
We were soon back walking through the woods back to the car. 8 miles, quite muddy, a bit damp, but glad we’d got out.
The route is here on OS maps.