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Walking Land's End to John o'Groats with Mark Moxon

Painswick to Gloucester

Upton St Leonards
Upton St Leonards

If you look at the recommended route for the End-to-End, it does something quite illogical after Bath. Until that point it behaves sensibly enough, wandering in a relatively straight line through the middle of Cornwall and Devon before entering Somerset and turning left towards Bath, but after Bath it seems to lose the plot until seeing sense again in Tewkesbury. The culprit is the Cotswold Way, which staggers all over the place as it heads north-northeast from Bath, but instead of cutting its losses and striking out north from Painswick, the End-to-End route sticks with the Way for another day and a half, creating two long days of 17.5 and 22.5 miles and a large and unnecessary bulge in the walk.

Towards Gloucester

Mark on top of Robinswood Hill with Gloucester laid out in the background
On top of Robinswood Hill with Gloucester laid out in the background

Today, then, was a stunningly easy day, and I checked into my B&B in Gloucester at lunchtime. The walk itself was short and sweet, and was considerably more enjoyable because I didn't have to keep an eagle-eyed lookout for Cotswold Way markers. The freedom was liberating after the way-marked trails of the last few days; I just sat down with the Ordnance Survey map and made it up as I went along.

In Gloucester

Gloucester Cathedral
Gloucester Cathedral

Gloucester is a slightly strange place, though it's perfectly pleasant. I say it's strange because one minute you're walking past the wonderful cathedral or through the modern and amazingly bustling shopping centre, and the next thing you're surrounded by terraced housing and the sort of suburbia you wouldn't expect to see this near to a city centre. Perhaps it's the city's size, but in Gloucester the city centre and the suburbs rub shoulders in a way that you don't see too often.

College Court, home to the Beatrix Potter shop
College Court, home to the Beatrix Potter shop