Day 2: Ashton Keynes to Castle Eaton

Tuesday 17 May 2022

Here we are, returned to pretty Ashton Keynes ready for Day 2 of our walk; hot and sunny.

Today was cow parsley lanes, wisteria clad houses, meadows and endless fields, with slightly more of an uneven ground, so walking boots are recommended. 

No wild garlic whatsoever.

We came across more Lakes which were the final ones on the edge of the Cotswold Water Park, there was a water ski lake, perfect day for it, and the Cleveland Lakes Nature Reserve, the largest purpose built lake in the area, it has the most reedbeds, marsh swamp and willow carr making it an excellent place to spot wildlife.  

I love this photo, no technical trickery, the water was this colour and sparkly.

(She flirts at the scene of danger!)

We found that there were lots of pretty butterflies along this stretch, white ones with bright orange tips on their wings, we tried to take photos but they moved so fast 

Susan caught this one, so we could identify it over lunch, (not literally caught it, caught it by camera) well would you believe it, it's known as Orange-Tip!

This is a great website HERE if you ever need to identify a butterfly.

At this point we still hadn't seen a single soul, apart from the water-skier, when suddenly two horses appeared with their riders.  One of them was very happy to stop for a photo.

We started to see swans once we rejoined the river, whilst keeping our eyes out for otters and kingfishers.

We found that there were plenty of little wooden bridges crossing over the river, here, there and everywhere.  Once we reached this section of the river ...

... we found ourselves in North Meadow Reserve.

Stunning.

This is one of the finest uncultivated meadows in Britain, through centuries of regular hay cutting and grazing.  250 species of plants can be found including adder's tongue, great burnet, marsh marigold, water crowfoot, buttercup, celandine and the largest number anywhere of the rare snake's head (or fritillary) which flowers in the late spring.   As well as butterflies, moths, dragonflies, bees and damselflies.

This habitat is now so rare in Britain as we have lost 97% of it in the last 100 years.

 

Once all the flowers were picked for local use or sent to Covent Garden, but now flower picking is forbidden and visitors must keep to the public footpaths.

Cutting of the hay begins on 1 July.  On the 12 August (Lammas Day in the old calendar) the Hayward (nominated person) unpadlocks the gate to allow the cattle to graze.  Horses go on in September, sheep take over in winter and unless the Thames floods they stay there until 12 February.

Neither of us are huge fans of cows in fields and up til now we'd been ok.  Then we came to this sign - Bull Grazing - aaargh!

Fortunately he was nowhere to be seen and we carried on into Cricklade, our lunchtime stop.

with some interim tree climbing!

This horse chestnut won our Tree of the Day, huge, but too big to get a complete photo sadly!

We were very hungry by now, the opal fruits had already been devoured a few miles back, so it was great to reach Cricklade.

Cricklade means 'place by the river crossing' and they even have a town motto, taken from a 12th century document which says "in lovely surroundings".

Their church St Mary's Church is Britain's Oldest Roman Catholic Church.

It has a small high street with various pubs, a small tesco, a cash point, public toilets, basically civilisation!

We found a great place for lunch The Cricklade Club about half way up the high street on the right hand side.  We'd had so much sunshine, it was lovely to sit in the shade with the breeze coming through their open side.

Susan had to get out the blister plasters, she wore different trainers for Day 2, not good.

(It was just under 6 miles from Ashton Keynes to Cricklade)

I think we'd say wear walking boots for Day 2 as there was alot of field and meadow walking, which wasn't always smooth.

We were starving!

We inhaled a bag of crisps each whilst they cooked our food!

Susan had 'Eggs in the Woods'

poached eggs with wilted spinach, garlic and parsley, wild mushrooms and hollandaise on sourdough.

I had Bubble & Squeak

fried cripsy potatoes with sweetheart cabbage, peas, smoked bacon, roasted cherry tomatoes and a poached egg.

Both meals were delicious, just what we needed.

With a vast range of alternative milks this time I got my coconut milk hot chocolate whilst Susan had her coffee, they refilled our water bottles, we bought cake for later and off we went ....

Leaving the town we passed some pretty houses, even the garages here have their own wisteria!

It was quite a shock seeing and hearing cars on the A419 after 2 very quiet days of walking.

But we quickly found ourselves back in open fields with the Thames widening, we were in fields of long grass, knee height at times, with tiny pathways so you definitely need long trousers for Day 2.

(I'm sure she only had a J2O with lunch!)

From here we had our silly hour, we've discussed world issues, politics, pandemic etc by now, so obviously needed some light relief, it was very hot, so probably slightly delirious too.

Refocus, head down and we just walked through field after field, the occasional swan, no otters, no kingfishers, two walkers coming from the opposite direction, more gates and more bridges.

Nearly at our final point but wait ...

... nooooo..... cows in our final field, we stood still and looked at the map to see if we were due to leave the path in the top left hand corner behind them (eek) or go round to the right, fortunately the path led to the right, without making eye contact we made it out alive and into the small village of Castle Eaton.

No shop in Castle Eaton, just a pub by the river called The Red Lion.

(Which luckily I had found out before our trip is always closed on a Monday).

I'm sure they wouldn't mind us eating our cake on their bench seat, we were exhausted.  Running short of water, sore feet and needing a rest.

Susan's blondie

My lemon drizzle

We timed it well, the clouds were coming in and it was really breezy.

Chauffeur Graham found us, practically horizontal in a pub garden .... 😁

Our total steps for the day were 26,100, an increase from Day 1.

A total of 10.21 miles for the day, due to the heat and uneven ground it felt alot longer today.

Working on our recovery and looking forward to Day 3

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