In June 2016 I walked The Ridgeway National Trail and after 6 years I find myself walking it again but this time, rather than doing it solo, I am delighted to find myself with the best possible walking companion in my friend, Michala Holdaway. We have a shared love of British landscapes, wildlife and photography so we make the perfect walking buddies.
The route takes a bit of planning as we have to work out how far we think we might be able to walk in one day and from there we have to work out where to drop off one car and then drive the other car to the start of our route only to have to drive back to the start later to retrieve that car.
Day 1. Tuesday 5th April 2022 Overton Hill to Fox Hill
For our first day we decided we would walk 17 miles which involved dropping off car no. 1 at Fox Hill (a 50 minute drive from home) and then driving a further 32 minutes to Overton Hill. So we needed an early start to avoid rush hour traffic.
With great excitement we started our walk at 8:20am by the Bronze Age round barrows at Overton Hill. Straight way we were treated to wonderful views of tree clumps encircling more round barrows so typical of this Wiltshire stretch of The Ridgeway. We stepped it out to the musical trills of the skylarks as they rose from their nests in the ground to celebrate the joy of this spring day.
In the hedgerows and along the fence lines we were treated to the appearance of meadow pipits and yellow hammers. This reminded me of how my mother told me to recognise the yellow hammer’s song as he asked for ‘little bit of bread and no cheese’.
The distance views remained hazy but in the foreground the fields of rape were strong and vibrant, sending wafts of scent as the breeze rustled through the petals. Rape is one of those plants that has been given a bad name for its overpowering scent, setting off asthma suffers, and I am told that when it was first introduced there was a ruling that it should never be within a two mile radius of a school. However, that seems to have long been overlooked as rape appears to be much more common. The drive towards sustainable farming may have something to do with this with rape providing a break crop from the likes of wheat, enabling the soil to regain some of its nutrients before the next crop of wheat. It also reduces the need of pesticides and fertilisers. However, despite not being a hay fever sufferer my nose can’t help twitching at the sight of these flowers.
At Hackpen Hill we encountered the highlight of our walk. Allow me to introduce Angus and Dave.
Michala took a shine to Angus straight away and I think would quite willingly have brought our trek to a halt at this point just so that she could spend a bit longer getting to know him. However it didn’t take long to workout that Angus is one of those who is all take and no give. This was evident from his unwillingness to raise his head from browsing for tender shoots. We thought he would at least have the decency to pose for the camera. He was having none of it.
In walks Dave. At long last Angus raises his head but no, not for us. Angus doesn’t give. He raises his head to enable Dave to stroke the side of his face and then along the length of his neck.
Dave shows such devotion for Angus without expecting anything in return, at which point Michala switchs camps and now Dave is her idol.
Angus, now fully relaxed from the whole process collapses onto the ground and, typical of Angus turns his body and head away to look out across Winterbourne Down giving us not a single further glance. Meanwhile Dave yawns and dutifully remains standing.
This interesting social behaviour needed further investigation and I now know that this is allogrooming. It is actually vital to the social wellbeing of a herd and the forming of bonds. It is likely that previously Angus will have performed this same service on Dave. So perhaps on a different day we might have thought Dave very demanding but try and tell Michala that when she is deeply smitten. As they say, love is blind. There is no point in me talking to her because any criticism of Dave will just drive her closer to him.
The distraction of Angus and Dave meant that we missed seeing the white horse on the side of the hill just before crossing over the road. A short distance further and we took a slight diversion around one of the Iron Age mounds where a cluster of daffodils were dancing in the breeze.
More surprises when we came across a hawthorn bush of which there were many but this one was extra special because it had become home to clusters of snails who had found the perfect place to aestivate (like hibernating). They clung to the crevices of the tree trunk in a state of dormancy. Amazingly the ‘What Three Words’ app came up the words ‘slime.debate.trace’. Needless it say it generated quite a debate.
As we continued with Hackpen Hill behind us, we looked across the Marlborough Downs, the gallops and the race course, passing the double ramparts and deep ditches of Barbury Castle where we stopped for lunch. Not that we were particularly hungry having enjoyed a few fingers of Scottish shortbread along the way. A welcome buttery treat which I nearly lost to Angus when Michala did her best to draw him over by crinkling the shortbread wrapper. Thankfully the downland grasses appealed to him more than a treat from his Highland home.
We sat by picnic tables, sheltering from the wind, having a munch before continuing on our way. At Upper Herdswick farm, after the stables, a new distraction cost us. We should have taken a left turn onto a lovely grassy path going east. Instead, the sight of a couple of race horses on the gallops drew us south down along a stony path.
A mile and a half later we approached a finger post and realised there was no Ridgeway sign. Our map shows us we were headed for Ogbourne St Andrew (the patron Saint of Scotland - this must have been Angus’ fault). We should have been headed for Ogbourne St George. We had no choice but to retrace our steps making our trek 3 miles longer than intended. This was tough. There was only one thing for it but to have another finger of shortbread and suddenly the challenge felt doable.
However as we rejoined The Ridgeway out came the ibuprofen to ease our aching limbs. Then the soft grassy path alongside Smeathe’s Ridge put a little spring in our steps. We took the path south to skirt Ogbourne St George, stopping for a quick refreshment and rest on a fallen log before the trail took us past pretty thatched houses and then to a challenging steady climb north up along a stony path. From there, our route was long and straight all the way to Liddington Castle fort.
I had little memory of the next part of the trail from my walk in 2016 and no wonder, because this next stretch was not the most pleasant as it took us alongside the road and eventually over a bridge crossing of the M4. From there we walked past the Burj, a restaurant servicing ‘exquisite Indian cuisine’ and discussed what we might choose to eat but deciding we might fall asleep with our heads on a plate of onion bhajis. At last we had arrived back at Fox Hill where, with a sense of relief, we lowered our backpacks to the ground and slumped into the car before heading back to Overton Hill to pick up my car.
What a day we’d had. The rain had held off. We were protected from the prevailing winds by our woolly hats and enjoyed the dramatic skies with distant curtains of rain not touching us and the occasional peek of blues skies above. The paths hard and dry despite the previous day’s rain. All in all, perfect walking conditions for the first day of our great adventure and I know someone who is looking forward to the next leg.
If you want to read about the second day of our adventures along the Ridgeway please follow the link below.