Day 6. Longhope to home.
Our walk today feels like drawing a section through a map of Gloucestershire. We climb May Hill and see the River Severn almost everywhere, turning,twisting and glistening – and in the distance the Bridge or is it our memory? We walk out of and down from the Forest of Dean and its red soiled hills. We see the Vale of Gloucester that stretches ahead, we feel the morning heat beginning to rise from it. We cross unmarked fields, following lines of trees where we guess the path used to follow a hedgerow, pushing, swishing through the crop, both annoyed and sorry. We nervously cross railway tracks, appreciative of the high quality stiles and signage. We walk the Severn flood embankments wondering about the houses below. We cross back across the Severn again on Telford’s original bridge and enter Gloucester’s green space below the grey road system thundering above. We rub tree 100.
Gloucester has its own diversity, maybe not as biodiverse as the landscape we’ve crossed but ethnically more diverse. We complete our crossing of the vale and climb back into the Cotswold Hills, swapping the colour and hot tarmac of Gloucester for hot, colourful and insect filled meadows on the Cotswold Edge. We reach Edge and stop.
