Cheddar to Clevedon: LEJoG Day 15

My day's walk began along the cliff tops of Cheddar Gorge, before a hike along the Mendip Hills. In the afternoon a long flat section much of it on cycle routes. 

I reluctantly left the luxury of the campsite at an early hour, too early for a coffee in Cheddar. Soon I was climbing around the edge of the famous Cheddar Gorge. The morning sun made the cliffs and trees beautiful, especially as the trees were just coming into bud, but I was disappointed not to find a good view down the gorge. The lookout tower was locked and elsewhere trees obscured the panorama. On the plus side, I did see the herd of goats and their kids that crop the grass on the cliffs. Tree filled valleys followed. Dry at first, higher up there was a stream which disappeared into the limestone rock and the extensive caves and potholes of the area. I was reminded of an earlier trip to Serbia. There the gorge I viewed in the morning light was the Iron Gates of the Danube, on a little bit larger scale than Cheddar Gorge. Serbia also had streams that disappeared into rocks, and appeared as rivers lower down.

On the cliff tops of Cheddar Gorge

One of the feral goats at Cheddar Gorge

Stream disappearing into the ground

Summit of Beacon Batch

My path climbed up onto moors with tussocks of straw coloured grass, with dark brown horses grazing on scarcer patches of short, green grass. Reaching Beacon Batch, at 325 metres the highest point on the Mendip hills, my route turned west along the range, passing through open moors, trees and farmland. Ramparts remaining from an old hill fort reminded me that on Christmas of 2019, in the golden era before the Coronavirus lockdowns, my siblings, spouses, nephews and I all climbed up to the same point. We had been spending the weekend celebrating in nearby Churchill. Today my way passed through the nearby village of Sandford, known as the home of Thatcher's Cider. I passed the factory and warehouse. The adjacent apple orchards supplying some if the fruit were all in glorious pink blossom. 

From Sandford I joined the Strawberry Line, a cycle track partly following the bed of an old railway. Straight and flat, edged with trees or green fields, popular with cyclists and those out walking, some with prams, others with dogs, it made for some fast walking. Where it briefly joined the road I was delighted to find a petrol station selling coffee (essential for my daily caffeine fix) and a chicken sandwich for lunch. The Strawberry Line ended at the train station at Yatton, where I stopped for a shandy at the pub opposite (in part to use the toilet as the cycle path was too busy and fenced in for discrete ablutions and the advertised station toilets I was targeting were inevitably closed).

The Strawberry Line.

My trip on the Stawberry Line was so successful I decided to continue on National Cycle Route number 26. A mistake, I had thought the unclassified road it subsequently followed would be quiet with little traffic, in this I was wrong. I should have followed the route recommended by my guidebook through fields. Stressed by cars moving by me at speed, I eventually took to a footpath through fields of dandelions, before picking up roads that delivered me to Warren Holiday Village. Although this was not the sort of place where people normally stay for just one night, they kindly rented me a spacious chalet for a most comfortable night.