DAY 69: Bath to Buckland Dinham
📏 Distance: 14.25 mls (22.93 km)
⛅ Weather: Dry with some sunshine
🕒 Start Time: 09.15 | Finish time: 15.00
The weather was fine, the sun shone and I was back walking on easy route.
The first section was along the tow path of the River Avon and then on to the former railway line of the Somerset and Dorest Joint Railway constructed in 1862 and axed by Dr Beeching in 1966. Since then the line has been turned into a linear park all the way from Bath to a small village called Wellow. Features include two tunnels (one a mile long) and an a viaduct!
The other point of interest for me was that the father of English geology, William Smith, lived near Bath and when he was surveying for the construction of the Somersetshire Coal canal, he discover that the rocks were in a vertical strata and contained fossils. He then constructed a Order of Strata Table. By 1815 he had produced a map of the strata of England and Wales, the beginnings of geology in Britain.
At the end of the Linear Park I found a very nice café and treated myself to coffee and carrot cake.
En route from Wellow I passed another Long Barrow similar to the one near Painswick which I visited on day 63, and a Wiltshire white horse seen in the distance.
Adam arrived early at our destination this afternoon, the campsite to the Bell Inn (where we have again not been charged). He discovered that Roy, the landlord, owned until very recently the Kirkstone Inn at the top of the Kirkstone Pass in the Lake District which I know very well - what a small world we live in.
They finished serving Sunday lunch at 3pm and closed the pub at 7pm so Leia, Roy’s daughter, was kind enough to plate a roast meal for me which I ate with relish after I arrived. Big thanks to the family and staff for being so kind and thoughtful.
Tomorrow is another shortish day and I hope that the weather is again kind.
