Ascent: 700m
Weather: warm, cloudy and humid in the morning, few drops of rain early afternoon, brighter after.
Feet: yellow
After posting yesterday's entry, and our thoughts were turning to sleep, a chap came and plugged in his electric guitar and started tuning up, right next to our table...and right underneath our room. Thankfully the music didn't go on too late and we had a good night.
After breakfast and rolls for lunch bought, we set off along the riverside, passed yurt city being set up for the festival goers. We crossed a pretty field filled with buttercups, after which our shoes were looking very yellow indeed. Here we spotted a fieldfare, before entering a pleasant shady wood of flowering horse chestnut trees, beech, ash, sycamore and hazel which was filled with birds and wildflowers, including (and yes, I have just spent quite a long time looking some of these these up) bluebells, bugle, mouse-ear (or stitchwort?), campions, cranesbill, yellow archangel, forget-me-not, yellow pimpernell and foxgloves. After a bit the wood became coniferous with no undergrowth at all - just fallen twigs, needles and pine cones.
Down a muddy track into the village of Newchurch and we had a rest stop at St Mary's church which does refreshments for a donation, and a cute little dog that begs while you eat them.
A bit later on we had a tea stop at The Royal Oak pub in Gladeston which has a nice beer garden.
The path then crosses over Hergest Ridge (426m) which is a heathy moor with wide grassy paths and patches of gorse. Skylarks were singing overhead and we saw yellowhammers and stonechats. In the distance we could see there was quite a lot of weather happening (and later we heard that they'd had very heavy rain for an hour somewhere about 5 miles away) but the wind was at our backs keeping the weather ahead of us.
At the top of the hill was a grove of monkey puzzle trees and an information sign telling of the Whetstone, a big rock that the drovers would use as a table and legend has it goes down to the town for a drink on a night. It must have started early today because it wasn't there that we could see.
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