13 miles in 5 1/2 hours, not including 15 minutes for lunch standing in a shady corner of a field. Most of it really interesting, and three bits really scary. Sorry for the long post today, a lot happened.
First I had to navigate the labyrinth of suburban housing estates of Bridgwater. Again Richard worked some kind of crazy map routing magic and I had a path out with twists and turns I never would have found by my own planning. Things of note on a Saturday morning in Bridgwater: 1) once out of the center it is a much more pleasant town - friendly and pretty, so I now can recommend a stay at the Old Vicarage Inn and a tour around this very old area (people have been crafting lives here since Neolithic times, through Romans, Saxons, Normans, and it has quite the Guy Fawkes Carnival and lighted parade evidently.) Anyone I spoke to mentioned it all to me. They’re heritage proud! 2) I loved the housing estates, such clever building and community design. Not big houses, but cute and characterful. Twelve individual semi-detached homes in a cul-de-sac! I wish we built housing like this in California more. One was named ‘Cox’s Corner’ and without any confirmation of truth, it warmed my heart to think we might be related through my maternal great grandfather. No idea where he came from originally, just know he was in London in the 1880s; maybe he or his family migrated from Somerset?! And 3) I’m ridiculous and thought I was going to have to take a big bridge over a wide river, because it was blue on my little map app picture. It was the M5 motorway.
And then I was out in the Somerset Levels. I won’t describe their historic fabulousness, but due to ice ages, geologic somersaults, human ingenuity of draining the land, it is a flat expanse of marshes, sluices and drainage ditches, willow trees (coppiced and harvested for hundreds of years), and farming for grains and animals. I ignorantly believed the east of England to be the only not hilly part, when we lived in Cambridge, but here’s their rival of flat, flat, flat. There are a couple of mounds sticking up, famously Glastonbury Tor, which I’m sadly missing on this trip. Despite the lack of ups and downs, it was pretty. I found it interesting that most likely due to terrain, the Cornish coast was full of long distance runners, but the Levels beset with cyclists. They were the only people I saw most of the day, zooming by and making me jump on the quiet drove roads.
Now the scary bits. I missed a turn at some point and found myself stuck on the A39 (a pretty busy road). I finally saw an overgrown footpath to the sunken old drove rode I was supposed to be on, with no cars. Next scare was when I was definitely making all the correct turns, using all those drove roads to wend myself through pastures, but then I came to a turn that no longer exists. This happens; a road used for hundreds of years to move animals ceases to be necessary in the modern world, and it disappears. When this has happened before I was able to get to an alternate route easily. But today I was many miles from a real road, in an overgrown field surrounded by barbed wire, some electric fencing (often charged up with a car battery!) and little waterways. I panicked a moment, but calmed myself, looked around and spotted an opening with a dirt bridge. Once I got to it I realized it was a different drove road, and happily it took me through an unmarked wetlands nature reserve and I surprised a pair of mute swans. (Today I also surprised two deer who sprang energetically away, many couples of ducks, and too many rabbits to count.)
My final scare of the day was a field of cows. I have not relished coming to a gate with cows on the other side. It hasn’t happened too often yet, and usually it’s a short way out the other side. But today it was a longer walk across. I wasn’t even clear on the direction. I had to walk between the group. I quickly noted there were no calves and no bull. I’ve read instructions on how to do this safely; the safest is ideally to not go into the field. But there was no other way. I started walking, close to the fence, they looked up, curious as cows are known to be. Then they started walking towards me. Then they started trotting towards me. All of them. I was surrounded, only the few feet right in front of me free to step into. They were so close I could feel their breath on my neck and their saliva dripping onto my shoulder. That is not hyperbole. I desperately wanted to take a photo because I’m a product of the times and need to document everything. But I didn’t dare stop and I didn’t want the camera noise to frighten them (does it make a noise?!)- I did snap one over my shoulder before they all congregated around me. Did they want me to feed them? Milk them? Were they scared of me and trying to intimidate me? (it was working) Were they just curious? Eventually I saw my footpath gate, but it was just beyond their big gate. They stopped and huddled, I had to squeeze between them and the gate, got to my little one and have never so fast maneuvered one of those fiddly latches.
I kept walking, saw more beauty, noticed more interesting things (like I was walking in the middle of Roman salt ponds; according to the map, nothing to be seen of them 2000 years later though.) I ran out of water, and it was 73degrees today. But I was close the my shepherd’s hut, so I was feeling okay. I stopped to take a photo of a stunning tree leafing out while it simultaneously was holding onto its pink blossoms set against an azure sky (the photo did not do it justice), and heard a voice call out. A sweet woman in a stunning garden full of lilacs asked me if I wanted any water and to come sit and rest awhile. I took her up on the water, but I was only a mile from stopping so I smelled her lilacs (she was rightfully proud), and continued on. I arrived to the most delightful spot. I took a shower, hand washed some clothes, walked to the pub, and now I’m tucked up watching the sheep from my window, ready for a good night’s sleep.
