We leave Bath with heavy hearts as we always do after rest days and saying goodbye to family. We soon find ourselves enjoying being on the road again, though, and the weather is warm if cloudy.
We set out along the canal: we are on the East side of Bath, so will have to skirt the city to reach the countryside. The canal locks are losing height, which is worrying as we know we have to cross the last of the Cotswolds to escape the city. There are swans, moorhens, ducks, magpies and a lovely little grey wagtail to lift our spirits through.
We soon leave the towpath and head up the ludicrously steep steps to the top of Beechen Cliff. There are spectacular views of the whole of the city from here and Jane Austen described it in Northanger Abbey as ‘that noble hill whose beautiful verdure and hanging coppice render it so striking an object from almost every opening in Bath’.
We continue on along the top gradually walking through the last of the city suburbs and finally leaving it behind via the Wansdyke or Woden’s Dyke. This is a 50 mile long linear earthwork comprising a 2-3 metre deep ditch and a massive bank. There are eastern and western sections of the dyke with the Fosse Way in between. All in all, it runs from Savernake Forest in Wiltshire to Maes Knoll in Somerset, though it may originally have extended as far as the Severn estuary. It is not certain who constructed it or why, but it was probably an early medieval defensive structure or territorial boundary.
We make good progress along a road until we reach a path passing into an overgrown area where we get scratched and stung. We emerge from this though with a lovely open vista ahead of the Mendips and the valleys.
We approach the A367 but turn away just before we reach it, to take up the Fosse Way again. This goes steadily downhill while the road goes round but it’s a good track and we soon reach and cross the road. We now pick up the Limestone Link again (confusingly, I keep thinking of the Limehouse Link, which is very different!). This takes us into the village of Dunkerton, where we stop at All Saints’ church for a break.
We continue on the Limestone Link along Cam Brook, seeing our first hare of this section lolloping over the field above us. As we approach the settlement of Camerton, passing a natural spring in the hillside, we notice that the Limestone Link has also become the Coal Canal Way. This route encompasses the entire Northern branch of the disused Somerset Coal Canal.
Coal was mined in this area of Somerset from the 15th century until 1973, as a wooded hillock nearby that was clearly a historic spoil heap attests. The junction between the Oolitic Cotswold and Carboniferous Mendip limestones yielded a rich seam of coal. This led to a decision in the late 18th century to construct a canal to transport the coal. A surveyor, William Smith, was appointed and he developed a system for dating and sequencing the rock. He became known as the father of English geology.
We now follow the old canal, but it is choked with mud and weeds. There are also the remains of a disused railway which took over from the canal as the main coal transport in around 1890. As we walk along, we surprise a large roe deer, by the canal wall she stops long enough for me to take a photo then disappears back into the undergrowth.
By now, we have almost given up hope of locating a decent lunch spot, when we arrive at the old, disused dry dock. This is Paulton dry dock and is almost certainly the largest canal dry dock in England. It also has a beautiful bridge recently restored by the Somersetshire Canal Society. Beyond the dock, there is a pool providing a home for swans, ducks, moorhens and a diving dabchick (little grebe). Above us, there are swallows, swifts and buzzards and frogs are croaking in the reeds. We sit down, Rich disturbing a tiny frog, and then have lunch and a rest.
After lunch, it’s back on the Limestone Link towards Hallatrow. Yet again, we’re struggling through vegetation and then we arrive at a gate completely blocked by a fallen tree. We return to the field, but there is an electric fence between us and the exit gate. Rich climbs over easily but it’s too high for me. I pass my rucksack over and then crawl underneath commando style.
At the village, we meet the A39. Our original plan was to follow this for a while, but it’s busy in the rush hour and the pavement soon runs out. We turn off on a footpath through a pub garden and yet again find ourselves battling with brambles, stinging nettles, hawthorns and giant rhubarb. We emerge into a field thick with buzzards. This looks like a training ground for youngsters and they land in the trees, on the ground and then launch themselves back into the sky. It’s a glorious sight.
We cross the A37 then enter another field full of barley. The path has been obliterated by the crops and there is no way around the outside. We push on through the crop and my legs are sore and scratched when we reach the other side. This is the agony after the ecstasy of the buzzard display.
Most of the rest of the route is now on tracks thankfully as my skin is zinging. We take a final footpath down across a field which emerges just outside The Litton in Litton, our destination for the night.
Total distance: 298 miles