Hereford to Bridge Sollers

Before the journey began today we had to walk two and a half kilometres to get to our starting point. One last view of the Cathedral

before we walked along the river, beside crops of canola

and down country lanes.

Careful deliberation at many intersections helped avoid mistakes and wrong turns. Eight kilometres were covered with fairly easy walking before morning tea. Once we found a suitable spot under an oak tree and sat down, we realised how tired we were.

The view was lovely

but Graham seems to have lost something.

We met three young mums who are walking the Wye Valley Walk in stages. They were on the third day of this section, then returning home and will come back next year and do another three days. They have been walking together since Covid.

They took this photo. Next we had to walk through a couple of fields of knee high grass with no discernable path. It was hard going, having to lift your legs much higher than normal. Sore legs coming up tonight!

Walking beside apple orchards and more canola was easy until

we had to walk through it! The farmer planted his crop right up to the path. Some of the canola was leaning over the path and on the other side of the path, amongst the Queen Anne's Lace, stinging nettles were growing, just waiting to sting us anywhere they could. By the time we got through there were stinging fingers, arms and knees. It stings through our pants! Thank goodness we had our gaiters on. The young mums took a long route around and met us just as we emerged, hailing us as heroes.

We had quite a struggle to find some of our signposts as they were hidden amongst the healthy growth along the roadway.

A delightful little flock of sheep came running down a country lane with a lady running along in front of them with a container of feed. The sheep had huge coats of wool on them. The local farming community is very friendly and helpful. The ladies were very interested in what we were doing. They were even asking us about our poles.

This country lane, which brought us to our final destination for today, St Andrew's Church at Bridge Sollers, is a Roman road.

Today was a long and difficult walk. We were all tired but Allan was dead tired as he lay resting against a tombstone

while we waited for the taxi to collect us and drive us back to Hereford for the night. Once we had walked to the Crown and Roses for dinner and then walked back again we had walked 20.22kms.