No, really, we came off not too bad at all, considering the amount of rain we’ve been having recently.
Due to illness of the scheduled walk leader, we did a swap of the February and March long walks which, in hindsight, may have turned out to be a good thing. The fields all around were saturated and waterlogged, and the replacement walk had been planned with potential wetness in mind.
There were 6 of us prepared to brave it, and we made it all the way round our 10-mile adventure. I hadn’t had the chance to pre-walk it, but we didn’t go wrong anywhere, thanks to Gaia.
Midsomer Norton has what they call Greenways, which are disused railway lines. The start of the walk was part way along the former railway from Bristol to Frome, which joined up with the main Somerset and Dorset Railway from Green Park Station in Bath to the south coast. We went from one to the other along a short section of the Fosse Way. The path was tarmac as far as Midsomer Norton Station, which has a restored section of the line. From there, we followed the line to its end at the disused Chilcompton Tunnels, which we skirted around then rejoined the railway path after that.
Although, we arrived at the start in a downpour, we had no rain or mud until we reached our elevenses stop just before Chilcompton. At Chilcompton, we decided to deviate from the planned route and went along the lanes, having unanimously decided not to try to climb a steep, slippery slope. After that, we did go across the fields on our original route, risking the possibility of flooded field gateways, but encouraged by some dog-walkers who seemed to think things would be OK. Then, lo and behold, there was a footpath gate with a small rivulet under it. The first of our number managed to swing on the gate and make it to the other side. The next person was not so lucky, and came short, plunging in well over the top of her boot. It was only then that we noticed a field gate further along, which the rest of us climbed over without incident.
Subsequently, we decided to avoid fields as much as possible, and stick to the lanes. In hindsight, we could have avoided that field too, but then that’s hindsight.
The next part of our walk took us across country to the Farrington Park Golf and Country Club. There was a nice solid lane which eventually morphed into a shallow stream. This was a chance to clean some of the mud off our boots.
The golf course had nice tarmac paths, and we stopped for lunch at a disused tee just beyond the clubhouse, having decided they might not appreciate muddy boots in their plush restaurant. There was a small chalet there with a few chairs inside, which the ladies enjoyed, while we hardy blokes sat on a bench outside.
After lunch, we headed off through the car park to Langley Down Lane, which I had assumed would be a proper road or at least a trackway. At other times of the year it would have been a wooded path, but now it was a stream. But we worked our way along it, hopping from side to side.
In the end, that so-called lane did become an actual trackway, although in places a better word for it would have been a river. However, we all managed to make our way along it by swinging along the edge, clinging to the hedgerow. I believe the technical term for this is parkour.
From then on, it became less adventurous. The lane turned into streets with housing, and we made our way back onto the railway path that we started on. It also didn’t rain from then on, which was nice.
People said afterwards that they enjoyed it. There was certainly a variety of scenery. I would recommend it for less favourable weather conditions. You can see that the section bottom left can be circumvented by going on the lanes. The bit marked Terrace Wood is actually the golf course, which is fine. That leaves the left hand half of the bit along the top, which was our parkour.