Great Cotswold Walk: Central loop

The Great Cotswold Walk, 132 caches, 23 miles, Quenington, Glos  

Hello!

It's been a few weeks, I know! We haven't had an internet connection for a fortnight and so I've only been able to update the blog today now that we have it back. I've set the date and time of this post to 17th Feb which is when I completed the Great Cotswold Walk.

Here's one final reminder of how we've split the walk before I begin my review of the Central loop:

GCW Central, 62 caches, 10 miles (1-37 and 71-93 + a couple of others) 

Once again, we had chosen a beautiful, sunny day to find more of the GCW caches. With the North and South loops having set standards so high, we had great expectations for this final section, and we were glad to get going early; in fact, the lanes we walked along at the beginning were extremely icy, and Fizz the geodog nearly slipped a few times (as did we!).

We were enjoying a walk through lovely open countryside to begin with. The caches were straight forward finds, and it was great to see some more snowdrops - we really can't wait for Spring!

Snowdrops - we've seen a few along the other GCW rings as well!

We were taken through some lovely little villages and hamlets, before the views really opened out. In fact, we feel that this loop had the best views out of the three, and they were made all the better under the sunshine. Unfortunately, we had to miss a cache out since farm workers were managing the hedge lines - hopefully the cache wasn't picked up amongst all those logs and twigs!

Views - even more beautiful when you're there! 

The time flew by as more caches were found. It was nice to walk through the lovely hamlet of Ablington again. We walked past an old tithe barn; can't remember the date it was built but it was sometime in the eighteenth century.

Old tithe barn in Ablington

A few caches later we were in in Bibury, a pretty Cotswold village which was filled with tourists - even today, a Tuesday, in February! I think it's neat how the route took you through Bibury as it's an iconic Cotswold village, so it just makes the series feel even more 'Cotswold'. We actually diverted slightly to find the cache in the heart of the village and to take some photos of the River Coln. We decided that there wasn't time to go to Arlington Row to see if the yellow car was still parked there!

The River Coln in Bibury 

The final stretch of the walk was fantastic, since we were walking alongside the Coln again, having done so on both the South and North loops. The river was just as beautiful today, idyllic, in fact.

Home stretch - the Coln one last time

All too soon, we were back in Quenington, where we had started the series just under a month ago. 26 miles and 133 caches later, we've completed possibly the best 'power trail' in the country. A very memorable series; whilst there aren't any elevated views, the route is beautiful in another way. The stretches along the river were wonderful, the settlements we passed through were lovely, and there was plenty of wildlife to be seen - overall, the area was mostly quiet and pretty much untouched.

The caches were all there to be found, which is just what you want with a series like this. We had five DNFs, but only where there were too many muggles to search or where the cache was clearly missing following DNFs before us.

To conclude: it really is a Great Cotswold Walk.

Griff Grof

Great Cotswold Walk: North loop

The Great Cotswold Walk, 132 caches, 23 miles, Quenington, Glos 

We weren't sure if we would be able to go caching this weekend! We awoke to three inches of snow on Saturday morning, with the forecast promising more overnight. It's always surprisingly difficult to find caches in the snow, so we were hoping that that they were wrong... luckily, they were.

We decided to complete the Northern loop of the GCW today; here's a reminder of how we're splitting the series:

GCW North, 36 caches, 6.5 miles (38-70 + a couple of others) 

Once again, we were lucky to be setting off under some lovely winter sunshine; we parked in the beautiful village of Ablington for this section. 

The River Coln in Ablington

The paths to begin with were great, and they offered us some nice views over the Gloucestershire countryside. Once again, the caches were easy to find, which meant that we could build up a good pace.

After just a few caches there was an obstacle in our way: the path was blocked by what appeared to be a natural dam. We followed in the footsteps of the walkers ahead of us, and navigated across by turning right down the valley for a few hundred metres until there was no water in sight. This actually brought us closer to an existing cache, GCT492, and so we decided to go ahead and find it. A stunning spot, with fantastic views; you could almost picture the valley being carved by meltwater at the end of the ice age.

The valley on the way to GCT492

We then enjoyed a stroll through some wooded areas. Unfortunately, the sun disappeared around this point, but this our spirits certainly weren't dampened as a result. We even saw some snowdrops, so spring can't be too far away!

Snowdrops 

The only thing the Southern loop lacked, if anything, were views from an elevated position. We were glad that this stretch of the series offered that; although we weren't too high up, the open wold views at #58, in particular, were fantastic. In fact, it even started snowing at this point!

Nice views looking back

Before too long the clouds made way for the sun, as we embarked on the muddiest stretch of the walk, which was also home to the most wildlife. We spotted four hares, and a fox and deer were less than ten metres from us at one point! This also turned out to be the quietest part of the series, with not a single person in sight, so I guess you could say that walking through mud for two miles was worthwhile!

We arrived back in Ablington all too soon, marking the end of another superb part of the Great Cotswold Walk. We had a brilliant time yet again; the walk was fantastic with some great views and a variation in terrain. Some of the caches were great hides, yet they were all straight forward finds which is just what you want on a walk like this.

We can't wait to complete the final, larger Central loop, which has around 60 caches! However, we've noticed that a few of them seem to be missing, so we're not sure whether we'll hold fire until they're replaced, or just go ahead anyway...

To summarise the GCW so far: magnificent.

Griff Grof