Four Seasons in One Day

It was wet and windy down south – so much that the Bristol balloon festival was delayed.. and the Boardmaster festival – not that we were going – was completely cancelled so there were quite a few lost campers trundling around the south west looking for alternative entertainment…

We did quite well -on a mission to find and ‘tick’ all the remaining esoteric crags on Dr Freds list and I followed with camera, sketch book and reading material in hand finding nice spots to photograph, sit and draw.  We were lucky with the weather - we managed to dodge all the really bad stuff and some how find quite a lot of sunshine...  

We had a very pleasant walk from Frome to Mells through some ancient woodland – we were only going to do a couple of miles but got carried away chatting and wandering and ended up doing over six instead!   Beautiful woodland complete with running stream, waterfalls, mill houses and some almost complete lime kilns.

Made all the nicer by a cake and a coffee in a nice mid way café and then a wander around the Mells church yard full of old weather grave markers and is in fact the resting place of the poet Siegfried Sassoon.  The church itself is very ornate (listed) and has some amazing stained glass but we didn’t have time to go inside to appreciate it fully.

We left our Bath friends gorgeous house and hospitality and headed in to the wilds of Somerset – interestingly it wasn't dissimilar to the Forest of Dean –  more widely populated than I imagined, and after spending so much time exploring really rural areas like Northumberland it feels strange to have so many little settlements dotted about so close to each other.   It’s a very pretty part of the country though, lots of beautiful old buildings with ornate stone work, thatched cottages, stunning country gardens – I’m very taken with the giant thistles which are increasingly common around here.

We did a very nice wander through a nature reserve to wind up at Clares rock – this particular crag was the first one really devoid of moss and bracken and so Dr Fred was able to actually clamber about a little bit – the whole area was busy with outward bound groups and climbers. 

A lot of the settlements here were pretty much ruins, lovely old stone work just slowly decaying, an old dam lost amongst the undergrowth and some beautiful walls and wee bridges just covered with lichen, ivy and ferns so incredibly lush and verdant….the weather then decided to come in with a vengeance we didn’t really mind as we felt we had earned a rest day – a day to be very lazy, peruse maps, read the crime novel I had found in the campsite book swop and drink a lot of tea….

We found a camping spot , a rural farm site with basic but adequate facilities and very friendly helpful staff and most importantly a pub within walking distance It rained and rained and rained and the wind buffeted the van but we were cosy and sheltered and set up for the night – I have to say this is when I feel very smug about being in out van – a tent even a luxury one couldn’t possibly be as cosy at Beryl.

We are not very good at being lazy so we did nip out for a bit of shopping, sightseeing in Glastonbury and also surprise surprise managed to tick of a couple more crags… the Oak Hill camping is an excellent central point for esoteric crag lists so it’s a few nights here before we plan our next move.