Painswick to Gloucester

P ainswick is definitely somewhere I’d like to visit again. The little stroll/hobble round last night didn’t really do the little place justice so I’d like to go back again some time. And the hotel, well, it was fantastic! Ok, you have to pay for it but again, it’s definitely somewhere I’d consider going for a quiet weekend away some time. Glad I decided that a little luxury was needed last night.

It’s funny but sometimes when I’m absolutely exhausted I just can’t seem to get off to sleep. That happened last night. I was exhausted from the day’s walking and wiped out from getting the blog post written and updated, but do you think I could get off to sleep? Not bloody likely! I remember seeing midnight and quietly swearing to myself. Clearly I dropped off at some point but I still woke up early, still feeling completely wiped out.

Knowing that I had the shortest day of the walk ahead of me I didn’t make an effort to rush around this morning. By the time I’d normally be finishing breakfast I was only just dragging my carcass out of bed! I got myself ready and went down for breakfast, by the looks of things I was the first one that morning, even though I wasn’t rushing up. The breakfast was very nice indeed and feeling nice and full I sorted my last bits out and checked out, hitting the road at 9:30am.

The start of today’s walk out of Painswick and picking up the Cotswold Way again wasn’t too bad. It took me out through some more woods and then across Painswick golf course. It was raining and I was surprised to see how many people were out on the golf course hitting their little white balls around. I wasn’t worried about the rain as I had all my wet weather gear on but they were all out in their jumpers. Are they mental?

A short road walk out the other side of the golf course I headed down a bridle path that just seemed to go on and on. There was nothing to see as it was tree lined on both sides and by the time I’d reached the end of it I was thoroughly bored. I wasn’t expecting the most interesting walk today but I was hoping to see something to keep me interested…obviously not?!

Things didn’t get much better. After going through the outskirts of Upton St. Leonards I crossed the M5 (again) and entered the suburbs of Gloucester.

Already having booked my accommodation for the next two nights in Gloucester last night, I took a slightly different route in to the town centre. This way I didn’t end up the other side of town to where I needed to be. That being said I still ended up walking as far as the original day’s walk was supposed to be so I guess the only thing I gained was missing out on the additional couple of miles I would have ended up walking had I stuck with the the original route.

The new route unfortunately wasn’t fun and it wasn’t pretty. So far there haven’t been many places on this trip that I wouldn’t be too averse to going back to if need be, but the outskirts of Gloucester are somewhere I never want to find myself walking through again! They were horrible and a real return back to reality for me.

The last place I didn’t really go much on was Taunton but at least that looked quite nice. Not so the suburbs of Gloucester. Horrible looking housing and streets lined with kebab shops and the like. Awful, just awful, or have I been spoilt rotten with all the wonderful scenery over the past three weeks and I’ve now turned into a bit of a snob? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

After what had already been a boring walk, to then make my way through that, well, it was almost soul destroying. Maybe this was why my body literally gave up?! About a mile and a half from the hotel everything pretty much stopped working. My feet felt like I was walking on broken glass and my pack just weighed me down like never before. I wasn’t having fun…at all!

I struggled my way to the the Station Hotel & Cafe Bar, nowhere near as grand as last night’s accommodation but that didn’t matter as all I wanted to do was drop my pack, take my boots off and put my feet up for the afternoon. And that is exactly what I did!

Having only taken three hours to get to Gloucester I spent the next five hours sat in my room resting up and watching the F1 qualifying and the Wigan/Leeds Challenge Cup quarter final. Bliss!

Sport out of the way I went to the bar downstairs and enjoyed a few very nice pints of Dursley Steam Bitter from the Severn Vale brewery, which coincidentally is based in Dursley – I walked past there the other day on my way to Cam…if only I’d known!

I don’t know why but I’ve been in the doldrums today. It was as though a black cloud was hanging over me and I just couldn’t shift it. No, it wasn’t the rain before you say anything – I actually enjoyed the cooler temperature and once I’m in my waterproofs it doesn’t really matter if it’s raining – and no, it wasn’t like past days where I’ve cried; none of that today. I just wasn’t enjoying myself. I don’t know if it was because I was exhausted, the walk was boring or what but it’s taken a long time today for that cloud to lift.

Let’s hope a day off tomorrow will mean I’ll be feeling refreshed and ready to start the next leg of the walk as I don’t want any more days like today…it wasn’t nice at all!

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post was that when I reached Painswick I’d completed 25% of the overall route, having covered a staggering 284 miles! It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was celebrating having completed 10% of the walk but 25%? And in case you were wondering, I’ve taken 643,695 steps to get this far…gulp! What an achievement and a great way to finish today’s post on a high!

Photos and Route Details

I f you want to find out more about this day you can see the photos I took or view the route details.