JOGLE 4 Day 3 - 5 Sep 11

Start 08.15 Finish 1810.Distance 20.5 miles. West Harptree - Glastonbury. Today was not a particularly eventful walk. The scenery around Cheddar Gorge was the highlight of the day and although I have visited Cheddar Gorge by car I have never walked across the top of the Gorge itself. The path taking us to the Gorge was interesting in that it took us through a very ancient mining area and on into a place called Black Rock. At Black Rock we meet a young group of fellow walkers undertaking their Duke Of Edinburgh Award expedition. We struck up a conversation and quickly established the group were heading for East Harptree which is not far from where we had come some two hours earlier. They couldn’t arrive before 1400 hrs and as it was 1100 hrs I guess they were killing time for a couple of hours. We stopped at a nice pub just off the A371 near Rodney Stoke for a pint and to eat our lunch. A very pleasant spot in the pub garden with the sun shining – a chance to get the washing dried! The afternoon saw us enter the area known as the Somerset Flats and yes very flat and very boring but with its own challenges. Footpaths that look as though they go across the many drains in the areas don’t always have footbridges to get one across the drain. This meant the route that we had recced on the map was not always viable. We had to skirt around on a couple of occasions to find paths that actually showed a FB (Footbridge) on the map to guarantee that we could cross the ditch (Drain). Interestingly a lot of farmland was for sale in the area and on one farm in particular it looked as though a farmer had gone bust as the crops were not harvested and the harvester was just abandoned in the field. On our travels through BANES (Bath and North East Somerset) and Somerset itself we came across numerous locals helping themselves to the fruits of the hedgerows such as Elderberries and also Hazel nuts and or Cob nuts. Apparently the Elderberries make good “anti-virals” – really? I seem to recall my Dads homemade Elderberry wine that always matured into a sparkling wine and that certainly brought a touch of the “O Be Joyful” to those that imbibed and would have probably knocked anything else for six!! As we arrived on the outskirts of Glastonbury the roads became very straight for miles at a time and of course it started to rain in true Glastonbury style. Ian and I made it to the Travel Lodge and ordered Breakfast that apparently gets delivered to your room – really? More on that one later. As it was raining we thought we would get a taxi into town, this involved a 30 minute wait and as an Army marches on its stomach and I was hungry and it was pouring with rain we opted to find the bus. A very helpful person (not, I think his brother ran the taxi firm) on the front desk of the Travel Lodge didn’t know where the bus stop was and thought it was quicker to walk into town – great! We had to get some washing done and set off in pursuit of a Laundry. By the time we found the launderette it would have been quicker to just hang our stuff out in the rain and it goes without saying that the Launderette was shut on a Sunday night. I’ve not been to Glastonbury before – mostly driven around the outside of it. It turns out that Glastonbury is very spiritual and Ian was in seventh heaven as they had a Vegetarian Café and a Vegetarian Restaurant. It goes without saying that Ian and I were eating a vegetarian that night. I did point out to Ian that I didn’t think I could eat a whole Vegetarian in one go, (After all I am a Carnivore). We couldn’t get a table for two and had to share a table with two ladies. One was sat with a laptop (local lady) and immediately told us she had mis-booked a flight on Ryan air! Well good luck with that one then. The other lady turned out to be a barking mad freelance pharmacist that was into Homeopathic medicines and really hated ” Boots The Chemist” and was from Birmingham. She stuck a pin in a map and decided Glastonbury was the place to go for the weekend. We proceeded to get a blow by blow account of what was in the shops, such as Broomsticks and Cauldrons and when Ian mentioned Harry Potter – well that was it, a big mistake. Luckily we managed to quickly devourer our Nut Cutlet Risotto with Jacket Potato (I had to have something off the menu I recognised!) and headed for the pub. The pub was quite quirky as well with a singer playing a guitar and singing Ralph McTell numbers (OMG) and a fully dressed Knight looking like something out of the crusades. It could have been one of King Arthurs Knights of course but he was rather large, perhaps he was called Circumference? What happened to the washing I hear you ask? I’m not saying because if my mum reads this I’ll be told off for not wearing clean underwear- after all what would the hospital staff think if I arrived at the A&E department having been savaged by a local bull, a friendly Labrador (not) or a barking mad pharmacist on a broom stick, if my smalls were not clean, I dread to think! All I can say is that the Travel Lodge was a most welcome safe haven for the night.