Today we left Much Birch and headed to Woofferton
Tom, Matt, Mark, Sophie, Harmon, Harpal were walking with us, Mehdi and Charlotte were walking / bag transporting and Lynn was transporting bags and providing sustenance to the team all along the route.
Much Birch is a parish that extends for about 1.5 miles (2 km) along the A49, a busy trunk road running from the border with South Wales to North West England.
The church of St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury by Thomas Foster dates from 1837 and the chancel ceiling is painted with cherubs peeping over clouds.
A nice quiet walk along country lanes for the first part of the morning (parallel to but avoiding the A49) on the way too Hereford via plenty of farmed fields and a few small villages – the church above is in the village of Callow.
Hereford itself if a pretty city and it was very busy as we passed through on what was a beautiful sunny day. It was starting to get seriously hot at this stage. The present Hereford Cathedral dates from the early 12th century, as does the first bridge across the Wye. Former Bishops of Hereford include Saint Thomas de Cantilupe and Lord High Treasurer of England Thomas Charlton.
Just before lunch we had our first “casualty” off the walk when Harpal found the heat to be too much so Mehdi picked her up and she was an excellent aide to Lynn in our sustenance for the rest of the day (she is still going to be walking with us tomorrow).
Then the long afternoon walk began. The heat was unto 30c at one stage as we crossed the River Lugg, wandered part some pretty houses and even admired the shape and colour of trees highlighted against the clear blue sky. Today Lynn bought the ice-creams to us (yes she came pre-prepared with a cool bag for this very need!) and provided multiple water stops in the afternoon.
Towards the end we passed a large field that was being “combine harvested” and it was great to see buzzards clearly visible – obviously hoping to benefit from the farmers activity.
Today was pretty tough with the heat and the 47km distance so credit to the team for completing the day and to Harmon for absolutely smashing her PB for a walking distance. It was a pleasure having the company and support over the last couple of days.
Tomorrow we head to Shrewsbury
