Sunday 4 September 2016

Day 12. Worcester to Upton on Severn.

Saturday 3 September.

We stayed two nights at the Crown Passage Hotel, one of the Wetherspoon chain. We decided to upgrade to get a bath instead of a shower to help sooth aches and pains.

We managed a laundrette visit on our day off as well as a trip to the magnificent Worcester Cathedral, on which I may blog later.

We left the hotel about 9am as it was not supposed to be a long day. I stopped off in Boots to weigh myself with and without pack. I'm carrying 15.6 kg.

It started raining just as we left Boots so we donned our waterproof jackets. We then headed behind the Cathedral to reach the Severn. The first picture is a view back along the river to Worcester. By the time this picture was taken we were in full wet weather gear.

It was raining steadily when we passed the locks (photo) between the Severn and the Worcester to Birmingham canal. We passed around the canal basin eventually passing the Digilis locks (photo) on the River Severn.

We next passed under the very high A38 road bridge. The bridge can be clearly seen to shield the river surface from the now heavy rain.

The path went through wooded areas and later beside  fields of small onions.The path then deteriorated with high Japanese knot weed, nettles and blackberry (photos). Not quite as bad as the way into Cressage though. Even so the heavy rain made it quite unpleasant.

We turned off on to the road near a white farm house. The path, after a short stretch of flooded B road, then joined the A38 for about 200m before making a right turn down a muddy track (photo) towards a quarry. There were no signs sayng Severn Way at the road entry but many dire warnings about being near the quarry. At the end of the road we did find signs where the path turned left across a ploughed/harrowed field. The path was cultivated right up to the edge of a barbed wire fence. It was quite a tricky walk. See attached photo of Shiel. We were on the footpath though as the next photograph of Shiel shows as did a large blue sign a little futher along (photo).

As the Severn Way joined the river again numerous way marking badges had been removed (photo), and we came across a recent map pinned to the fence.Apparently there is now a permissive path all along the river at this point. Sadly it was not mentioned at the turn off to the road from the northern end, or if it was we never saw it

A litlle further along we go another surprise when we found we had a 2 km detour around Severn House, and this is the official route. Hence a picture of the house from both sides.

There was yet another detour from the river, before the end on our walk due to engineering works on the Severn bank.

The peultimate photo is of a dead oak tree, I quite liked its silhouette. It had fined up again by the time the picture was taken.

The final shot is of a museum we passed on entering Upton on Severn. A fine old, non leaky building. They knew how to build to last in those days.

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