Tuesday 30th July - Woodmancote to Cirencester

Day 6:

We leave the B&B from Woodmancote around 10.30am.

The weather is terrible but I am still hoping for a bit of sunshine.

We have a short walk ahead of us today.

We will follow a new path, Monarch way for 24 hours
to reach Cirencester Youth Hostel.
The Monarch's Way is a 625-mile (1000km) long-distance footpath
that approximates the escape route taken by King Charles II 
in 1651 after being defeated in the Battle of Worcester. 
It runs from Worcester via Bristol and Yeovil to Brighton.

I usually show you the printed map where

I drew my path but the rain left it as papier-mache

at the end of the day !!

We left Woodmancote on a foot path
- horizontal red dashes between the village (green dot)

to Monarch way, the red line with losange (vertical,
following the river Churn.

At this stage it's pouring down with rain

but we follow the good path, Edward is making sure of it !

 I prepared my route with public footpath which are not so well determined and 
make our tasks more difficult. 
My map is becoming papier mâché by the rain and I can’t read it
but I know we are passing by North Cerney.

My lover of nature spotted a beautiful snail.

We took cover under an open garage for our snack pause.

The heaven open on us at this stage !

We were going to carry on walking all the way to Cirencester
to eat our lunch.

But we finally found cover under the by-pass viaduct of the A417
on the driest spot we could find
surrounded by sheep's dry excrement.
-- VOTED the worth place for lunch!! --

We leave our cover to go threw Baunton.
Its 14th century church

We are going up in the woods

We can see Cirencester church.

We enter the town of Bowling green.

We then follow Cirencester streets which will lead us to the Youth Hostel.

It's 15.10 and the hostel open at 4 pm

The rain has stopped and we lie every thing to dry in the sun.

At 4 pm we register at the reception
where I shamefully hand her a very wet booking paper.

This Youth Hostel stands in the art center of Cirencester and
was a former brewery warehouse
which has been nicely restored.

 After a hot shower and put on dry cloth,
we are treating ourselves with the best Indian food in town.

Woodmancote to Cirencester - 12 km under heavy rain for most of the walk. 

But we are TEAM Macmillan nothing stop us !