Turning around

Soon it was time to turn around and head into Shropshire. The first port of call was Ludlow on market day (Monday). This is a nice place and we will be back I’m sure, as there’s two family reasons why we will be coming to the area.

There’s no photos of Ludlow as rather frustratingly we handed over our aging phones at the willing repair shop. We entrusted them for “new batteries” but the short story is that two hours later, neither phone had been updated and we raced back to the car park, exceeding the allotted time, without any ‘snaps’ being taken.

The exploratory visit to the campground at Little Stretton was a success. We and a dozen others were there for day #1 of the new season. According to Pam, half of Pam and Oscar, they have run the place for fifty five years. It’s in an idyllic valley, right under the Long Mynd, accessed across a gentle ford 🤪 This year anyway!

We decided to test our walking pace and with Oscar’s slightly disbelieving eyebrow raising after he suggested a six mile round walk. We took it with an “Ok we’ll go now before tea” and set off.

The valley is a picture of tightly interlocking spurs and the narrow path rises steadily up to the road at the top of the hill. In contrast to home, there were few about and we hopefully teased the walker 1/2 mile behind us as we got to the top in 50mins without stopping for a breather.

This is the start…

It is a big lump of hill and the views are tremendous. On the way around to the decent we came close to some of the many wild ponies up here. The foal was clearly just finding its feet; probably just a few days old.

Down we went, against the clock and we were back within two hours. That’s not bad for virtually six miles and two OAPs 😀

Later we ate a great meal with T&S at the Ragleth Inn in Little Stretton, a very handy 2 minute walk from the campsite.

With walking confidence boosted, the next day we again strode up the same valley at 3mph but then turned right and walked the short distance to the top of Cardingmill Valley. This is a popular spot towards the bottom, as it’s accessible by car.  Quite a few walkers were well on the way up the very steep top half.

Lower down we met a big group of GSCE school kids, who were measuring, at various points, the width and depth of the stream coming down. Also they were taking measurements of the bed load, sampling rock size and angularity. A quick google suggests they are studying the Bradshaw model. More on that, once I have studied it 🤓

Our walk didn’t end down in Church Stretton. Oh no, we apparently had to walk up the hill on the other side and we then, after a rest, were able to wander south along the ridge. This presented a great view back over to the Mynd and down to the town.

The campsite passed the test and I expect we will be back. It’s clearly popular but not big and perfectly situated.