Mendip Way to Loxton - Feb 2025
| Hiking part of the Mendip Way to Loxton | |
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On Sunday morning we took a spontaneous hike along the Mendip Way to Loxton.
Liz came with us. We tested what it is like with three adults in Percy. Worked well for
a short 20-minute drive from Burnham. We parked on the small car park near the corer
of Roman Road and Canada Combe. Since we arrived reasonably early, there was a space available for us.
Minutes later it was full. Phew!
The plan had been for a 4-mile hike to Loxton and back. But we encountered mud and then a private road, detouring us through the village of Hutton, and making it a 6-mile hike. |
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The first part of the hiking path was good, and then we hit mud - thick deep mud that sucks your
shoe off! We debated turning around, but we had not brought wellies for all of us. So we pushed on.
Once we had traversed the first 500 metres of deep mud, we were OK and happily wandered on. We were treated to more beautiful views over the green landscape of Somerset. |
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| We realized that we could see across the valley and the M5 to very aptly named "Crook Peak". We hiked Crook Peak and surrounding hills the month before in January. | |
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| Looking back at our photos, we even had a shot where our vantage point from the hill above Loxton was visible. How fun and lucky is that?! The weather was much better in January than in February. | |
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| The turn-around point for our hike was the 13th century St. Andrews church in Loxton. A beautiful arch and path meandered through the woods leading to the small church. | |
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The hike to Loxton had been mostly downhill, which meant we got some extra exercise on
our way back. That is why we, as we often do, incorporated a snack and tea-making break
half-way up the hill.
We had also brought mandarins and Norwegian chocolate (Twist). The Norwegian chocolate had been part of a "Christmas-care-package" from Adelheid, and Hild had been able to hide them until now. Yum! |
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| During our uphill slog we distracted ourselves by spotting lots of sleepy sheep. A level of confusion on Hild's part was sorted when Rob and Liz taught her that: while "gorse" and "gauze" may sound the same to Norwegian ears, they are very different things... | |
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For our return to Percy, we had planned a short detour through a place called "Upper Canada", which was a funny coincidence for us. When we got to the junction where we wanted to turn for our short-cut, there was an open gate, but a notice that it was private property. Ugh. So we took a longer detour through the village of Hutton, then a round-about way to get back to Upper Canada. Next time we know better, because at the other end of the short-cut a sign indicated it to be a public bridle way. So we could have used our planned short-cut anyway. Lived and learned. | |
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And it is becoming our mantra: "Should have worn wellies...". |
February 2025