Saturday 8 July ‘23. DH, RW, TO, AC, DL, JB, CH & Scrumpy
As part of the summer season in the glorious surrounds of Wincanton,Bruton and Castle Cary, plans were afoot for the 3rd instalment of “ Breakfasts at Home”. In Blackmore Chase even more plans were afoot for an enjoyable walk around the North west of Wincanton, BUT recent unpredictable (very wet) summer weather intervened and therefore negated original plans.
Following a conversation with our supreme leader (a.k.a Dave), John and I hastily got together mid-week and, using John’s ultimate mapping technology, devised an alternative route. Breakfast was duly booked at the Cale Café.
Everyone made a timely 0830 arrival at Cale Park, Wincanton, where the weather was still undecided. A fine drizzle was falling at this time and with this in mind individuals made personal decisions about the amount of waterproof protection needed and we started off up West Hill via the main road as we couldn’t bear the thought of more than 60 steep steps up Atkins Hill, considering ourselves a group of “elderly gentlemen”.
We bore right just after King Arthur’s School, along the footpath adjacent to the school playing fields. This took us towards Suddon House, which is now the Elroi Manor residential home. It was wet under foot due to heavy rain overnight, so everyone was glad that they had considered wearing walking boots.
At this point it also became apparent that the recce walk undertaken by John and myself earlier in the week came into force as the entrance to stiles and gateways had been cleared of nettles and brambles in preparation. In fact, the further from Wincanton we proceeded the more pronounced the preparation by John and I became as this footpath had rarely been used in recent months. We needed to circumnavigate some fields rather than follow the footpath across their centre due to established crops of oats/wheat/maize, although one wheatfield had to be walked across the middle as is was impossible to follow the edge.
This gave us the feeling of being in the classic scene from the film “Gladiator”.
The views afforded us here were outstanding, even on a dull day, visibility clear for several miles, especially to the east over Wincanton Race Course and towards Castle Hill at Mere.
Gates and stiles throughout the walk had been well maintained and were easy to use so no lifting of Adrian was required today.
Swinging west - to the south of Westleaze Farm – brought us to unchartered territory (at least until John and my recce last Thursday) which was a sad fact as it was only about a mile from where we had both worked for many, many 10s of years in the past! Even today I ventured off the beaten track as I missed a planned gateway, much to the amusement of the rest of the group who had, of course, followed the planned pathway.
At this juncture we headed directly south and John’s trusty wooden stick with rubber ferrule enabled easy passage through pastures rife with herds of young cows, cow pats and electric fences. Once over the footbridge and double gates near to Suddon Grange Farm we needed to skirt a large field filled with very tall, green maize, aiming for that well know Welsh town of Abergavenny. Fortunately this was not a navigation error but we headed toward the “Abergavenny” just outside Wincanton.
By this time our feet were rather wet and the ground was tussocky causing a call for a stop at the gateway near to Holbrook House before we crossed the former main road between Castle Cary and Wincanton. Once this had been achieved a sweet stop – Swizzlers, of course! – was required to restore fading energy levels.
This also achieved, we headed towards Hook Valley Farm through yet another field of young cattle. The views afforded us at this point over the Dorset Downs were impressive causing us to reflect on the fact that sometimes we forget about the beauty of the area that we live in.
We crossed the narrow valley to the west of Hook Valley Farm using the rickety bridge, managing to avoid annoying the resident Troll.
A steady climb past New Barns brought us to Atkins Hill housing estate where we all bid a hearty “Good Morning!” to my son-in-law who was outside gardening and who, by the expression of deep shock that he bore, was surprised by being hailed by so many muddy gentlemen of “ a certain age”!
A rapid descent down the steps that we had avoided at the start of the walk brought us eventually back to Cale Park and the café for a much needed and eagerly anticipated breakfast.
The quality of the food at Cale Café was, as always, excellent, though for some reason beyond my understanding, 3 of our membership decided that they needed to add avocado to their order.
The walk took 2 hours and 10 minutes and covered 4.2 miles.
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