Day 2 of the Cotswold Way started where we had ended day 1, at Tormarton. I had decided that Donnie dog was going to do the mornings miles with me, so he was keen to get going. After crossing a couple of fields and roads to get out of the village and into the grounds of Dodington Park, we were making better progress than Day 1.
We had decided to meet earlier to try and avoid the heat of the day and it paid off because we managed the first 9 miles of the 17 mile stretch in two hours. The terrain we covered was much more forgiving than the day before and we found plenty of natural water stops along the route.
We passed a better variety of scenery too, which included a couple of ancient hill forts and numerous monuments along the top of the ridges we ascended. The scenery was incredible and I honestly loved every minute of this section
The final bit of the 17 miles brought us down a very steep hill on a road into Wotton-under-Edge, where we were met by our amazing support team who fed us and helped us swap the dogs over for the next stage of 8 miles.
The route from Wotton to Dursley was much more demanding in terms of the steep inclines and this time with some severe declines too just to add to the fun! The temperatures were starting to rise again at this point and the natural water points seemed to dry up too. There was still a degree of tree cover on lots of the trail and we met some lovely walkers who asked us what we were doing, then donated to our fundraising.
However, there were still a number of fields we crossed which were very open to the sun and so we slowed our pace right down again, to ensure the dogs were comfortable with the temperatures and not working too hard.
The very last section of the trail on Day 2 was around the top of Stinchcombe Hill Golf course and afforded us the best views we had seen so far. We could see right over to Wales on the other side of the Bristol Channel and miles back to the monument we had passed at the beginning of the 8 miles out of Wotton.
We descended down into Dursley to be met with the vans to whisk us off home in the Sainsbury’s car park! Another day completed and 25 miles in total covered of the route in one day, hard work but very rewarding.