Day 4: Cotswold Way, Birdlip to Painswick, 8 miles

Birdlip, Painswick

I’ve been extraordinarily tired the entire day despite yesterday and today being our easiest hiking days. I was grateful to be able to get a really good night’s sleep last night, which is normally a challenge for me even with a lot of miles under my feet.

Gary is fine. He has so many important roles on this journey: sherpa, launderer, water purifier, packer, equipment manager, trail guide, cheerleader, and navigator. He’s a machine.

I don’t even really have a job besides scribe. And yet I spent time in the hotel billiards room this afternoon with the intention of writing only to be found by Gary an hour later sound asleep with my mouth hanging open.

For today’s accommodations, we splurged on what looks to be the most posh hotel in the village of Painswick. It’s simply called, “The Painswick.” The village itself is called “The Queen of the Cotswolds” so we consider ourselves quite lucky to be in The Painswick, a storybook place that apparently repels anything unattractive. The very gravel on the road is handsome and well-mannered. There’s simply no pain in Painswick. I’d feel more complete about our splurge had we added an extra day here just so we could experience it more slowly and better rested.

Near the end of our hike today, well past lunchtime, I declared it was time for a well-deserved snack. With both of us looking like a couple of vagabonds, Gary reminded me like an English gentleman we were due soon for afternoon tea at the Painswick. And that’s just what we did. It was the best part of our day.

As I write, we have just finished dinner at The Painswick, having taken a “turn about the garden” like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy might have done in Pride and Prejudice. Having read the books and watched the films countless times, we were aware it’s the thing to do when you’re in the English countryside.

We did experience a misunderstanding in our hiking plans that affected yesterday and today. As navigator, Gary has been making decisions regularly to maximize our experience. Decisions are based on the fact that we are here to enjoy ourselves, not to end our days unnecessarily miserable just to prove we can do it.

Last evening Gary pondered what today would look like, and realized we would be far better off reducing our mileage today, thus leaving from Birdlip instead of Seven Springs.

Either way we were required a taxi transfer to Seven Springs from Cheltenham where we stayed last night. It was absolutely the right call so we could more fully enjoy Painswick and our hotel.

Our hike today was simply beautiful. Although I found myself missing the up-close-and-personal with the sheep and cows, we largely traveled through wooded, fern-bordered paths today. Absolutely magical.

The winning curiosity for today was Cooper’s Hill, a very steep incline known for its annual cheese rolling event where people throw themselves down the hill to race after a wheel of cheese. Yes, a wheel of cheese. That’s the prize apparently, as if the notoriety weren’t enough. You can read about this bizarre event and this year’s cheese roll which took place just last Monday. The article is HERE.

The below photo clipped from the piece I cited above is a dramatic contrast from our immersion in British sophistication over afternoon tea at The Painswick.

Below are today’s photos of Cooper’s Hill. It’s no joke. These people are insane. Same type of folks who play golf in a hurricane on Cleve Hill.

Gary and I were doing the math tonight about all the great people we’ve encountered from all over the world. Thus far in the Cotswolds we’ve interacted with people from Canada, United States, Britain, Wales, France, Norway, Australia. Below are a couple of lovely British ladies from the trail, Marlene and Angela. Marlene at the far right is the most spry, chipper, and capable person we’ve seen on the trail yet. She’s from Yorkshire, well north of where we are, and has hiked all over the world. Angela is equally as lovely. Living somewhat locally, she joined Marlene just for today if I have my facts straight.

All told, we had a great day. We hiked 8 miles, covering 915 feet of elevation. Painswick was surely worth the effort. Much of the astonishing beauty of Painswick and all the Cotswolds is the range of depth of the landscape. We really aren’t quite capturing that in our photos.

This afternoon after touring Painswick, Gary and I dropped into a pub for an early drink. Gary opted for an Aspall Draught Cyder which he reports as being good, not great. I had a half-pint of a light ale called Carling, the least hoppy of my two options. It was wonderful. I would have had more but for my looming exhaustion.