Trains and hills

It’s day four of the Dursley Walking Festival and I’ve taken on an unexpected walk since Mick, the original walk leader, contracted covid. This walk is called “Hills Of Dursley” and is a 13 mile circular that starts/finishes at the train station.

This kind of walk is important because it’s advertised with Ramblers further afield who plan to travel in by train. However, the recent strikes mean that people have lost confidence in travel plans and there were a flurry of cancellations at the last minute. In the end, four joined the walk, including one from the train which was great.

So a small, but perfectly formed group set off on this interesting tour of the main feature hills in the area.

I hadn’t had a chance to walk this beforehand, but I know the area well, and was familiar with the GPS route plan, apart from one small section of path that I hadn’t been on before.

The first part was a trek along to Cam Peak, onto Cam Long Down where we had a brief break, and then back down to Dursley for lunch. Down there I met with several other groups who were starting out at lunchtime, so there were a lot of walkers in the area.

After lunch, the final climb was up Stinchcombe Hill, where we skirted the top and took in the amazing views. On the way back down, we went via Piers Court (Evelyn Waugh’s old house) and circled back to Cam on well known paths.

The train back to Bristol was leaving at 4.54pm, and in the end we made it back at 4.15pm which was plenty of time. All in all, it was definitely a good day, even though the numbers were less than expected.