Wotton-under-Edge, Old Sodbury, June 12

Another excellent breakfast with a little action to boot. While sitting at the breakfast table, our host ran outside with a scoped rifle and bi-pod feet which he proceeded to balance on the stone ledge, and aimed at something. He shortly came in without firing a shot and his wife said he was squirrel hunting. Pretty pesky squirrels and he wanted to get rid of them, but he said he did not have a good clean shot. The squirrel lives another day and out of the stew pot that was planned for him!

We got away a little before eight and had a cool and chilly walk downhill through town (we love those downhill starts), beside the church, the creek, and started the proverbial uphill track. Glad it was cool!

We followed the trail which was partially on the road, being careful to walk slowly due to the toads and frogs (see the pictures :).

There was also some fog which we both were delighted with as it made the uphill effort much easier as it was cooler.

The trail continued with excellent views on all sides. We soon came to a deep, woodsy and dark track described as an "unquiet mystery ". Go figure. Did not see anything mysterious about it except for the girl walking uphill and the high schooler who was running downhill. They both looked quite normal and not mysterious at all. Those English travel book writers are always exaggerating!

We noticed farmers working to move fencing and Arlene suggested that they move the cows and leave the fence alone. The farmer, with perhaps a bit of sarcasm, said that he had not thought of that. Sounds like the Irish versus the English. About an hour later, we again saw them working in another field with the cows partially blocking our path. Arlene said that she liked the cows better when they were further away, and he said that he liked them best when they were between two slices of bread. Meal versus safety, but I prefer the meal idea.

We continued walking along, just the two of us with an occasional hiker walking the other way. The fields were green and some were overgrown making walking a bit difficult. At one point, I almost stepped on a bird that must have been injured as it did not move so we captured a picture and carefully moved away. Nature does what nature does and who are we to interfere?

We walked beside Somersault tower which was built in 1846, had lunch in Hawksbury Upton (much better than we could have imagined), walked along Bath Lane, entered Horton, met an English walker who we walked with for a couple of miles and saw him again enjoying wine at dinner, saw lots of sheep and cows, visited the church in Old Sodbury, walked through the Sodbury Fort (dated to 577 AD), and reached our destination for the day...The Dog Inn. A long day and our dogs were really tired.

After relaxing, we had a wonderful dinner of fish and chips, and steak and ale pie. We were both stuffed and no room for dessert...that is a triple bummer.Read more