Carpet Baggers 50

Another in the series ‘A bit out of order’, the Carpet Baggers 50 is an Anytime Challenge Walk….that means it’s a challenge walk that can be done at anytime. And it’s 50 miles. Obvious really, innit?

The Plan was to complete the route in 16 – 17 hours, with a 6am start there was half a chance of grabbing a pint at the end of the walk. It’s good to have an incentive.

At almost 6am precisely the party, led by Aaron, left Birchen Coppice and headed to Bewdley and the western bank of the River Severn. It was a bit muddy.

River Severn at Bewdley @ Stupid O’clock  

The River Severn is spanned by some beautiful ironwork, real engineering:

After a muddy 5 miles of Worcestershire Way, the route briefly left the banks of the Severn and went through Seckley Wood. It was in this wood that I thought it prudent to examine the path very closely indeed. It was a sudden decision, very sudden. Only another 45 miles to go. With muddy knees. Oh well.

The paths through Seckley Wood weren’t as clear as the map suggested. Having only recently acquired the SatMap Active 10 GPS I was keen to try it out in anger. The SatMap wasn’t any help –it took 25 minutes to compute my location, by which time we’d succeeded in navigating out of the wood using map and compass.

A more detailed report on the poor performance of the SatMap can be found here.

 

Crossing the Severn Valley Railway, just after Seckley Wood

5 more miles of riverbank to cross the river at Highley and a stretch of very welcome dry tarmac.

The first breakfast / lunch stop was at an ancient stone near Alveley, the ‘Butter Cross’. It’s a stone cross that dates back to the Black Death, it was where food was left when the village was quarantined.

The Butter Cross 

Miles and bloody miles (about another seven actually) of reasonably dry fieldery and roadery took us to our next breakfast / lunch stop at Claverley.

 Over the fields to Claverley

The plan was to grab some grub in the pub – perhaps a bag of chips and a pint of tea. Unfortunately the long waiting time for food meant we just grabbed a cuppa.

Tower of All Saints Church, Claverley, and the churchyard cross. And a litter bin.

Ludstone Hall, a couple of miles north of Claverley

Signs of the area’s industrial past became evident as we approached the outskirts of Wolverhampton:

Awbridge Bridge on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal

Judi leading the way 

Annabel leading from the rear

Aaron continued to drag us along way. Some of it was incredibly muddy whilst other bits were just muddy. Some bits (not many) weren’t muddy at all, these were generally the tarmac bits.

High Energy Flapjacks

Another lunch stop, I can’t remember exactly where, but it was memorable in that we were treated to some High Energy Flapjacks. Annabel had been busy baking. These flapjacks were wonderful. I’ll publish the recipe, probably after this posting. They’re not just delicious, they’re a serious source of high octane energy.

Minds were concentrated as the light faded. It pays to watch where you put your feet – when you’re getting tired AND it’s dark it’s very easy to slip, trip, fall into a man-eating fetid swamp or whatever.

I really wanted to see the red sandstone Kinver Edge in the light, but it wasn’t to be. Kinver Edge is the site of an ancient hill fort. Not so ancient are the Holy Austin Rock Houses, which were inhabited until the 1950s. These rock houses are actually built into the side of the Edge. Night navigation onto the Edge wasn’t easy, unkempt woodland concealed the footpaths and it took ages to find our way onto the Edge.

It was around this point that the SatMap actually started to perform. Admittedly it had been switched on for ages and so had already computed our position. The woodlands paths over Kinver Edge and Arley Wood were very muddy indeed and trying to navigate in the dark whilst attempting to stay upright was proving difficult. With the aid of the SatMap we managed to stay on track through the woods. So y’see, the SatMAp Active 10 CAN perform, it just doesn’t do it consistently.

Entering Shatterford I’d twigged that Judi had been quiet. Not that she’s a chatterbox or anything, she was just very quiet. I put it down to tiredness. I was wrong…..I’m a man thing, it’s what we do. All the time. This fact is constantly pointed out to me, so it MUST be right. Mustn’t it?

Judi was feeling quite unwell and really needed to bale out. At around the 41 mile mark we managed to order a taxi for Judi and she was whisked back to CarpetBaggers Control back in Kidderminster. This was exactly the right thing to do.

The last big woodland of the day, well it was around midnight by this time, was Eymore Wood. The route through the wood generally followed the signposted Worcestershire Way this really helped route-finding in the dark.

The poor weather had brought down some trees in the wood, there was no walking round these obstacles – the only options was to climb over…or scrat around and try to crawl under. Not easy when you’re knackered.

One of Eymore Wood’s fallen trees. 

At around 1am a break was called in the wonderfully named village of Catchems End. Heaven only knows what the residents would have thought if they’d looked out of their bedroom windows to see a bunch over-tired, ragged bunch of walkers littering there garden walls at that time of night morning!

We were thankfully back on tarmac once again (I never thought I’d welcome the appearance of a road!) all the way to the eastern bank of the River Severn. A bit of Severn Way followed by some quiet country lanes took us back to our cars, parked just where we’d left them at Birchen Coppice, by the A451. Badges and certificates were dished out, there was much shaking of hands, hugs, patting of backs and so on – the sort of stuff that we stiff upper-lipped Brits do so well. Ahem.

It was now 2am and the pubs were shut. to be honest I was far too tired to go for a pint – or even eat properly. I managed a hot shower and forced some food down, and then promptly fell asleep.

Aaron had put on a good walk. Although it was a published route it can’t have been easy leading a group of unknowns over an unfamiliar route, especially considering that he’d had no opportunity for a pre-walk recce….so thanks Aaron! 

This is where we went:

 

50 miles with around 3300’ of ascent in 20 hours.

More photos here.