So today is the start of a seven day adventure / challenge walking the entire length of the Ridgeway, an ancient roadway – 87 miles / 140 kilometres.
Again walking with an SPR group which has the distinct advantage of transport to the starting point and collection from the finishing point plus your own bed for the night!
As I meet at Millets Farm at 08.00 on a Saturday morning I discover we are quite a small group for this first day. Steve will lead but there are only three in the core group that hope to complete each stage – that’s Anna, Mirella and myself.
Not the best of weather forecasts but it is January. The walk starts near Avebury on Overton Hill. This is the start of 87 miles!
The path is very obvious and continues northwards towards Hackpen Hill – strange that there is an area nearer Wantage with the same name.
The weather is not being too kind but rain is quite light – well it was !
Onwards passed some cows and wonderful clumps of trees.
The path eventually turns to the East and we can begin to see Barbury Castle – an Iron Age Hillfort. By now the rain is harder as the forecast has threatened.
The Hill fort has double ramparts and a very deep ditch – amazing to think this would have been dug out with antlers! Steve decided that we should walk around the ramparts rather than through the middle where the path went and that we should get out the shelter. So we sat in the most exposed place inside an orange shelter , each sitting to hold down an edge and using our rucksacks as extra ballast !
This was suppose to make a more comfortable lunch break – I would have to agree to disagree! I had the wind blowing on my back and shelter flapping round my hood making it hard to drink my coffee.
Having emerged from our lunchtime ‘accommodation’ we continued in a ESE direction and along a completely different area – Smeathe’s Ridge- wide and grassy and then sun was trying to break through. We are again in an area used for horse training.
Some rather beautiful grass to walk on, we go along this ridge and then down towards Ogbourne St George but not through it. We cross the River Og – not very significant at this point and walk through the hamlet of Southend before reaching the main road between Swindon and Marlborough. Interesting to see the various building materials used for houses. Chalk always seems an unlikely building material.
The walk today was 15 km and quite tough at times due to the weather.
Marion's 50 Walk Challenge 