Swapping homes for around the world travel: Hiking and driving in Somerset, England

We woke up to a glorious morning, warm and not a cloud in the sky. We decided that today needed to be spent outdoors. The Wavering Down & Crook Peak hike looked like a good one, close to get to by car, 6 miles round trip, and a difficulty rating of 2 (1 being easiest and 3 being more strenuous).

Nice day!

The walking path is not so easy to find. We easily found our road and where to park but could not find the path. After asking we were pointed in the right direction and headed out (the path is between two houses). Let me tell you, this is nothing like hiking in Minnesota where the trails are clearly marked and it is almost always exclusively on state or national park land. Here, you walk across farmer's fields and past their homes and past their cows, looking out for cowpats all the while. You climb over stiles, you walk past barbed wire fences, you climb over more stiles.

You pass this topiary on the way to the path.

Just walking across some farmer's field.

Crossing a stile.

We ended up taking a slight detour because a woman had warned us about the cows up ahead, that they might be "frisky" and could be dangerous, especially when their young were around. I think she was having us on, all because we looked nervously at her very large growling dogs when they ran up to us! However that may be, when we came to the cows they were rather menacing, if you can believe it. The closer we got to them, the more of them stood up and stared at us. Not wanting to try and get around the cows we turned around and headed back and took a different path. They were very large cows.

Belligerent cows or just curious?

We never made it up to Crook Peak but we did go to Compton Bishop village and found a nice, and very old, church, and met a couple from Kent who had the same hiking book we did and who had come from the opposite direction. We agreed to meet up at the White Hart Inn and have a pint together. Unfortunately, the inn isn't open until 4pm so we went our separate ways.

St. Andrews in Compton Bishop. Another very old building, dedicated in 1306.

After going back home for a quick lunch and a change of clothing we set out for the town of Cheddar and Cheddar Gorge. Our hosts had warned us that it is very touristy there and they were right! It's very pretty and it would be even prettier if not for the shops and chain cafes everywhere. It's also 5 pounds to park anywhere. After asking a very helpful ticket clerk at a bus tour counter we learned that we could just drive through Cheddar Gorge ourselves, stopping briefly to take pictures at paid parking spots without having to pay (briefly being the operative word) and that the road was quite good with only one narrow spot. He also said that we could either find a place to turn around at the top and come back the way we came or just keep on towards Wells.

It's a short but breathtaking drive through the gorge. There is the one narrow spot for about 10 yards and I had to come to a quick stop so as not to run into a bus, but you just take turns driving through (like many narrow spots in the roads here).

Not readily finding a spot to turn around we decided to continue on to Wells, so we had a bit of a drive through the country. The scenery was nice, especially the part with the trees shading the road, like driving through a tunnel of trees. Unfortunately, you can't get a picture, there are cars ahead and behind and no place to stop. I think they must close the road to get all those great pictures you see in travel magazines of just such a stretch of tree-lined bucolic beauty.

We stopped in Axbridge on the way back to look at the medieval buildings and to walk around Cheddar reservoir. It's an easy, 2 1/2 mile walk on a mostly gravel path with some pavement. It's the first reservoir to permit sailing and it has been designated an area of Specific Scientific Interest as a great many different waterfowl come there, even many of the rarer birds. We saw a swan and many different types of ducks (I'm not a birder but since we travel so much maybe I should take up the hobby). We also saw lots of sheep. They are allowed to graze on the sides of the reservoir and you really have to watch your step as there is sheep dung all over the path. We even saw them drinking from the reservoir and walking along the short wall.

You can see the cleft of Cheddar Gorge in this picture.

Axbridge has a lovely little square and there is a nice tea house there and I would have liked to have tea and scones with clotted cream but I wasn't hungry then and I just couldn't justify all the calories. However, I will have to remember that I want to have tea and scones before we leave England.