Country Walking and pubs in the U.K.: The Meningitis Trust

Wow what an epic we have for you this week, a 'full on' 21 mile (33.8 k) walk taking in Five valleys around the Stroud area in Gloucestershire. (U.K.)
The day started very dubiously, waking at 7:30 am to lots of rain and dark misty sky's, my first thought was that we would never walk in this, it would have been ok maybe on our usual little 10 mile jaunts but 21 miles? Forget it!
But then a miracle, well not quite, as I gazed out of the window in the direction we were to go, I saw blue sky's appearing, and with that hope of a good day.
So with that a quick phone call to Dave to reassure him all will be well, and of course Liz needed extra reassurance ~ "I can see over the hill and they are all wearing Hawaiian shirts' I quipped.
Now call a 'new walker' to our scene Tony (aka Maloney) to tell him all is well and we are ready for the off.
We started from Nailsworth at the far south of our route finder, paying our money and acquiring said route sheet we are to collect stickers on the way round as prove of reaching each check point.

Oh I nearly forgot we have got a late arrival Liz's Mum (Julie) who is a veteran of this walk and knows it inside out.
Off we went finally at 9:35 and straight onto one of the hardest parts of the walk, a whacking great hill on the way to Minchinhamton Common, we huffed and puffed and went passed a few people that looked as if they would never make it. (i don't really want to mention near death as that would not be polite) but as far as I know we all made it in the end.

You can actually start this walk from anywhere along the route, so perhaps it would be better to start from the check point before our start point so as to warm up a bit.
Nevertheless our party did it really well and we continued to frog march over the common, I started to skip a bit and got a few strange looks from a passer by and my friends threatened to disown me so I stopped, just as well as I wouldn't be able to keep that up.

Liz's mum was lagging behind as she's not a great fan of hills and likes to take it easy, but she is 58 after all so will let her off. . . . .
Oh but what this? A mile more down the road and she has caught up (what speed) she has now earned the name of 'Snail on the hill but a whippet on the flat'
It's a bit of a tongue twister but very descriptive.
After the check point we continued on & Tony and i picked up quite a pace and left the rest for dead, in-fact we started to jog round through a wood and down the valley, very pleasant and made a nice change.

At the next crowded check point we had a bit of a rest, me gobbling up a couple of boiled eggs and some nuts while waiting for the rest to show up, Maloney nipped behind some cars on a drive way to whip off his jeans to put shorts on, and 'dam' I forgot to take a photo, I'm sure other people thought he was up to no good. (which would normally be the case)
~ (only joking Tony.)

Brimscombe & Eastcombe have now been conquered, and as we all re-grouped to head off to the Slad valley where the scarecrow points the way. Cheers Scary.

Now this is the most dangerous part of the walk, it must be stressed this is not due to the terrain but the excellent pub 'The Woolpack' (see first blog) as stated it is my favorite public house, if we were to go in there then we would have to be very careful and limit ourselves to ONE pint only. As we approached Slad we were very much taken in by the spectacular views over most of the Valleys that we were walking, the weather had held off and indeed been pretty sunny. . . . . . Ah Perfect.
We stopped to take photos of said view and to admire the Woolpack from a far.

An apple  was taken by me as we descended into Slad and on to the next check point, just under 10 miles have been covered so far and a blister has started to appear on my right heal, Ouch!
I hope it would not get any worse . . . . Fat chance of that.

But what's this?? I don't believe it! It was decided, that we would give the woolpack a MISS and press on, "well I never". No Lunch and NO beer!
We wanted to be able to collect all our stickers before 5:30 as the checkpoints close at this time so this was a very wise decision.
In the words of my good friend N.R.M. "Walk On Carl" (thanks for your comments on the blog mate, hope to see you with us soon)
Walk on we did, and upward, and upward, and upwards to an open common with plenty of sun on it, and there for on us too Phew, this was tough going we are knackerd and still not at the top. My feet were hurting and my head was throbbing there was sweat dripping from us, so what did Tony Maloney and I do? Thats right we ran the last 50 meters to the top. (Fools) It nearly killed us, well not quite.

And then prove that there is a god as we reach the top we entered a very cool 'Standish Wood' bliss and what a tonic, better than beer at the woolpack . . . . . . . . . well . . . . . . . again not quite!

In the interest of keeping this blog short-ish I can't write all that accrued on this walk other wise i'll be here for hours.
Walk on. . . . . . . . . . . .
And we do down the cool wood with the sun lightly streaming through, the end was in sight or so I thought, on reaching our next check point in 'Stonehouse' we had the very forgettable cheese burger, but at these sort times anything would taste good, sadly at this time and for £1:70 it did not, it was eaten anyway. (but if the money went to charity then it was money well spent) (I suppose.)
Well, spent was exactly how we were all feeling and we still had just under 5 miles to go, yes thats right another FIVE miles.
My heals are now in full blister rubbing mode, Tony feeling the same decides to jog to try and ease the pressure, it works a bit for him but not for me Ouch, ouch OUCH!!
When will this all end?? Liz was chief whiner last week this week it was ME follow by Malone.
Dave aka country curry didn't have any problems all day. (bugger)

As we checked into the penultimate check point liz lay on a wall (this laying down may catch on) while we got our stickers put on our route planner.

We had spent the last 3 miles on a flat disused canal, then a disused railway track that is now a Cycle track, we then still had 2 more miles to go, this was indeed the trickiest bit even though it was flat and to be honest boring, it hurt!
We put our heads down and grinned and bared it till we walked through a lane and were totally caught by surprise as it was the end, we had made it Whoopee!!!

Of course we got our final stickers put in and a certificate was awarded and a picture taken . . . . . . . . I hadn't felt so tired in years.
Back to the car and every step was a struggle but the joy of finishing was matched by the joy of taking one's boots off, and dangling your feet out the car window on the way to the 'Holy Woolpack' for a pint of 'Old Spot'. . . . . Cheers,