National Star College warmed all of our hearts. If Bear could be compared to the Grinch, his heart grew 10 times its normal size today. Before he left, he made a significant monetary contribution to them. We were both overwhelmed with what they are doing. He got even more info while he was talking to one of the managers.
It started at breakfast. We saw an upset student in the lobby and three staff members worked on cheering her up. There was a student starting to work at the front counter. He only smiled at us, but it was his first day. Then we saw a student get off the bus just beaming with joy to see one of his favorite staff members. Seeing all this in action combined with all we had read last night was just overwhelming to watch.
National Star is a college. They have between 150 and 200 students at this campus. After the students finish secondary school, they attend here for three years. National Star works on giving the students dignity, teaches them how to ask for what they need, and builds family and friend groups that the students can rely on. All this why teaching them skills they need to earn a living for themselves. Often, groups of students will continue to live together after college because they have become family.
There is just so much more information and stories to tell about this organization. They do this all through private contributions for building and maintaining the facilities and communities contribute for their students costs. All this is done without burdening the families. Because it’s private and not government, they are able to maintain an almost 4:1 staff to student ratio. They have four locations in England. Look them up on line and contribute if you can. Tell them “Bear sent you.”
We started off walking 3 miles to cover 0.7 miles. We were wondering if there is something special about getting the trail up to 100 miles. The distance by road between Chipping Campden and Bath is just a bit over 70 miles. There’s a lot of areas we circle back on ourselves hiking this trail. Truth of the matter, each one of those loop-backs takes you to something significant to see. Today was no exception.
It wasn’t even a mile and a half until we hit our first cafe. This was in our first loop-back which took us to Crickley Hill. Crickley Hill was an Iron Age Hill Fort dating back to 900 BC. The cafe was much more recent and sold ice cream and shakes. We were still full from breakfast so we just wanted something to fill in the gaps in our stomachs.
Back to the fort. The cafe had an excellent presentation explaining what we were going to see. The hill-forts were really more like fortified settlements. In the middle of the fort was the town. Crickley Hill was a isosceles triangular shaped hill with steep drops on the two long sides. The base was relatively short which the people built a fortified wall with limited access. This is the fourth such fort we’ve seen on this trip.
About a half mile after the fort, we came to another Pub, but not even I could justify another stop so quickly. Sassy had been talking about lunch yesterday, and none of us could recall what we had eaten. That had been nearly 10 meal/snack stops ago. We just consider the Air Balloon Pub the one that got away.
Once we crossed the A417, we got to look back and see Crickley Hill from a distance. It’s the best fortified hill-fort we’ve seen. After our glance back, we entered what has to be the largest forest we have encountered on all of our trips to Great Britain. I’ll be honest, we have forests in the US that aren’t even imaginable to people here. Even the little bitty Shawnee Forest in Southern Illinois, the smallest national forest in the US at 370,000 acres is beyond their comprehension here.
We walked nearly 7 miles in forest in one stretch. England is an old and very developed nation. It’s roughly the same size as Illinois which has a population of 15 million. England’s population is over 80 million. To keep that many people close together, it takes a lot of coordination and management. Their public spaces are limited, but well maintained.
In the middle of our forest walk today, we came to and climbed over Coopers Hill. Maybe you recognize the name. I doubt if anyone does, but you’ll know it once I tell you what it’s famous for. Almost everyone has probably seen the event that takes place here. Cheddar cheese is rolled down the hill and people chase them. It’s a huge annual event, and we just missed it by 2 days. We’ve seen it on TV which cannot capture how steep the hill is and how stupid the people are that participate.
Approaching Coopers Hill, we met a couple about our age that were from Kent. We ended up sharing stories and talking to them for nearly an hour. We’ve done a lot of the same trails in the UK and they had a few suggestions for additional ones for us. We were able to share a little info with them for the Yorkshire Dales Hi Way and the West Highland Way neither of which they’ve done.
After a break on top of Coopers Hill, we decided we needed to make some miles. We were hoping to get in 12 miles today and possibly stay at the Edgemoor Inn. There’s rain predicted for tonight. We can handle it if we have to, we just choose not to if we can.
The rain started as we were passing through Painswick. We ducked into a pub hoping we might be able to get a room there, but they were completely booked for the night. From the look of things, they were also probably too pricey for my taste. Rather than deal with the rain, we decided to have a pint and see what happens.
By the end of the pint, the rain had stopped and the sun came out. Not only that, my feet no longer hurt. If we could have stayed for another, I’m sure all my aches and pains would be cured. I couldn’t get any takers, so we were forced to walk the final mile and a half to Edgemoor (uphill).
As soon as we got there, we asked about rooms. There weren’t any. Hadn’t been any for years. The family that runs it now lives in all the rooms. This was a bit disappointing, but we have tents so it’s not the end of the world. At least we’ll get a good meal so we don’t have to cook.
Towards the end of the meal, an older gentleman came over and asked if we were hiking the Cotswold Way. He then told us he was the warden for the section we were about to hike. We wanted to ask about wild camping opportunities, but decided, best not to ask when the enquirer asked us where we were staying tonight. He suggested hiking back down to Painswick, but hiking that hill down and up again held no appeal to any of us.
We waited for him and his party to leave before we headed out. The waitress asked me what we were going to do and I said Randwick is only about 3 miles just so she would stop asking questions. We had already decided to wild camp if we couldn’t get a room at Edgemoor.
There’s a fair amount of forest in the 2 miles right past the Edgemoor. Sadly, the first half mile has almost no remotely level spots anywhere near the trail. We wanted to get in thicker forest that had less undergrowth and more protection from the rain. We eventually found a spot just before dark at 9:30.
Since we’re “illegally” camping, we tried to hurry up and set up tents before the rain started. But, we had to do so trying to make as little noise as possible because we can hear voices coming up the valley. There are houses not too far away. As soon as we got in our tents, a light rain started. Maybe since it’s raining, the warden for this section won’t come scouring the trail for us.
EFG