Jeri’s Steps: 37,998
Miles walked: 16.1
Elevation: 1,230
Pints: 2
Churches: 1
Stiles: 25
Benches: 2

From Somerset into Wiltshire…

Today we walked into our fourth county, Wiltshire, although it will be a brief stay as Gloucestershire appears on the horizon sometime tomorrow.  We left the Albany guest house at 9.00am and walked through the center of Bath, across the Pulteney bridge.  Bath is an amazing city. We hadn’t walked around Bath on our rest day which was a shame, but then rest days should be just that.  On our exit from Bath we came across a group of very nice friendly people marching for COP26, the upcoming climate conference in Glasgow this November. They are marching in relays from Carbis Bay, where the G7 took place in June (see our earlier blog).

The day’s walk was mostly by canal and river, initially next to the Kennet & Avon canal and then the By Brook, a tributary of the Avon, so not too many hills.This was a good thing as the day was hot, sunny and relatively humid. Also most of the day we followed the Macmillan Way (yes our chosen charity!)

Our mid morning snack took place on a shady bench in front of a garden full of chickens, ducks and strangely, emus. We refilled our water in Box and had lunch on a kerb. In Ford we had soft drinks in a pub and the barman gave us a pint glass of ice to cool down our camelbacks. 

Our host at the bed and breakfast collected us from Castle Combe at 6.00pm and not only invited us to share a glass of wine but also to use their above-ground pool, so within minutes we were cooling off at the bottom of the garden sipping chardonnay. Nice. Dinner was at the Salutation Inn just a 600 yard walk down the green lane.

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