Stanton to Cleeve Hill Day 2

It’s Thursday 3rd October and a spectacular sunny autumn 🍂 day here. We are excited for a big day of hiking across the escarpment to Cleeve Hill.
Chipping Campden was a beautiful village to stay for a second night. We loved our dining experiences and the beautiful shops.
I met a local farmer whilst waiting for a coffee at Chipping Campden this morning. He gave me a quick run down of the history of wool around these parts and he told me the names of the local breed of sheep 🐑 mainly bred for their lovely chops these days. The main breed is North Country Mill with the spotty black legs and faces and the Texal are the broad face pretty eyed sheep. 🐑
It costs too much to shear the sheep in England so the only sheep are the ones for meat.
Later on the hike we met a farmer at work. Him and his son were “daggjng” the ewes in preparation for the rams. Basically tidying up their bottoms (crutching). He also has a lot of steers locked up and feeding them silage which was very smelly indeed!
We had a transfer to Stanton at 9:30 and walked 25km today to arrive at Cleve Hill around 4:30pm
It’s a long walk up and down hills and through woodlands and across the sides of hills where sheep are grazing.
Our BnB was at the very top of Cleve Hill and we had a beautiful room with a magical view over Cheltenham, a sprawling city below. The sunset as we walked to the pub for dinner was a spectacular sight.Read more