Day 40 Part 1 - across the floodplain

Day 40 was always going to be one of those peculiar short walks, owing to the uneveness of the accomodation along my route. Gloucester to Tewkesbury was a convenient distance for Day 39 but trying to reach Worcester in one day would have been tough. So instead I'd set my sights on Uckinghall, just south of Upton-on-Severn.

Breakfast at Malvern View in Tewkesbury was delicious, especially the bacon and sausage, which Ron gets fom the local butcher. With time on my hands I chatted with Ron and Helen, two Scots who have lived in Surrey, USA and South Wales. Ron worked as a technician in the fabric mafacturing industry and had to relocate as companies closed or moved. We talked about the decline of manufacturing and how they found themselves in the bed and breakfast business.

I took a few wrong turns trying to pick up the river path. Tewkesbury is at the confluence of the Severn and the Avon and the smaller Carrant. I doubled back from Telford's bridge, along the lock and found another dead end at some new riverside homes. Eventually, I got onto The Mythe, the land between the Severn and Avon, whose flooded pumping station was the centre of so much attention during the summer of 2007. Five inches of rain had fallen in a single day and on top of the swollen Severn, which was already in flood, the effects were diastrous. Thounds were left without drinking water for two weeks and many were forced out of their homes. For a few days, Tewkesbury was completely cut off, except for a footpath along a disused railway.

Again it was hard to find the right path. I tunnelled through high cow parsley and nettles but the path ran out a small clearing. Tucked behind the overgrown weeds was an inflatable dinghy. Only for a fraction of a second did I think about taking it out onto the water.

Backtracking yet again, I picked up the proper path, which led me to the pumping station. There's still evidence of the floods, principally the flood defence walls built of huge sacks of gravel inside a tough plastic membrane. The footpath took me over these, via steel platforms and steps, into the pumping works, and back out again.

I followed the Severn as it turned north west, alongside large angling lakes. At one point I paused for a breather and as soon as I stopped to look at the lake between the trees a trout leapt from the water. It rose at least a foot, flexing its body into a powerful curve, and snatched an insect from the air. Majestic stuff. I've often turned at the sound of a splash, only to see rings and ripples. But never have I seen the flat water burst by such a fish.

(continues in Part Two)