Wed 23rd May - Kinver Edge

Yesterday I went walking on Kinver Edge with my friend Virginia from Almost Athletes. It was a hot sunny day and I was glad of my large-brimmed sunhat and my Platypus drink system inside my rucksack. We followed a route mapped out by Julie Royle in her "Worcestershire Walks" book. I had mapped out the route on OS Maps and sent the details to my Garmin eTrex - there were a few times during the walk when it was useful having this gadget as a back-up to aid with our map-reading.

I'd already sussed out the free parking in Kinver and we were lucky enough to get the last space. We weren't sure if anyone else from Virginia's walking group would be joining us - in the event no-one else appeared at the suggested meeting place so the two of us headed off in a north-westerly direction.

Along roads and between houses to begin with, but very soon we found ourselves walking through woodland and along field edges and green lanes. One of the best aspects of the walk turned out to be the way the scenery changed every 30 minutes or so. After a short walk along a lane we entered an area called "The Sheepwalks". We walked up a steep grassy slope and met a group of walkers including one man with a bleeding leg - he had decided to wear shorts and managed to collide with a metal post (as well as having been stung with nettles). We were glad we'd both decided to wear trousers (and would be even more glad of the extra coverage a couple of miles further on).

Reaching the top of the Sheepwalks we descended steeply to a large pond with a footbridge over the outlet stream on the left-hand side then made our way around a couple of large fields before heading south-east back towards where we had entered the area. This entailed negotiating our way through an overgrown path with waist-high nettles .. you see what I mean about being glad of the extra coverage of our long trousers. Not only did we have to contend with the nettles - at the end was a stile and a series of fences. It took a minute or two to work out the route around and over these fences to get to the stile we could see which we needed to climb over to continue our walk. The farmer nearby, working in his tractor, was either oblivious to our confusion or didn't care (b****y ramblers!) :-)

After leaving the Sheepwalks area we walked south along a series of lanes for around 3 miles and stopped for lunch along the way at the edge of a field with some nice views and more importantly, some shade. Reaching Kingsford, we turned east then north and entered Kingsford Country Park. The woods here were shady, peaceful and very pretty. Along the way we met a 'birder' who was out and about trying to record a rare warbler. As we chatted he pointed out some nearby birds he could hear (blackcap, chiff-chaff, willow warbler) but he was more interested in locating the elusive rare warbler he was searching for.

We were heading north by now and finally nearing Kinver Edge itself. The path became a wider track, and more people began to appear - a sure sign we were getting nearer to Kinver. The views from Kinver Edge were worth the walk.

At the far end of Kinver Edge we descended to Holy Austin Rock and the Rock Houses (NT) ..

.. before making our way into Kinver and back to the car.

Julie's description of the route was pretty much spot-on but her distance (11.25miles) was a bit out as Virginia and I both recorded 13 miles on our Garmin watches. Julie devised this route a few years ago so maybe she had to work out the mileage using a paper map and a piece of string?