I am inviting anyone who fancies it to join me in walking a circular route aimed at reconstructing the kind of walking you might experience on the Camino de Santiago. It starts and finishes at a mainline railway station in Worcestershire located in a village with plenty of parking, two shops, a pub, several restaurants and a Travel Lodge, a couple of minutes from open countryside. The route imitates a comparatively easy day on the Camino - just under 20km (12 miles) and with no mountain ranges to cross. There are cafés and pubs every two or three miles along the route - the essence of this type of walking is that there is nothing else do each day except to walk, so you can afford to take your time and stop for a coffee or beer every hour or two. If you approach it that way, then a 12-mile walk is a doddle and as we are approaching the longest days of the year, there is plenty of time to do it in.
I shall be walking this route on Saturday June 16th with two or three others from a small group of people from my mountaineering club that has gone to Spain annually each year to walk a section of the Camino. One of the objectives is to introduce our partners to this kind of walking so they can decide if they might want to come along in future. The aim of opening it up to other people is not to walk with them as a group but for people to set out as individuals, couples or small groups (like ours), at a time to suit you (I would suggest starting out between 8:00 and 10:00). This would create the Camino ‘feel’ where there is a constant procession of people who keep overtaking each other and bumping into one another in cafés and bars.
The route starts through picturesque green-belt countryside with gorse-covered knolls, meadows and woodland interspersed with villages. It then traverses what was formerly a remote tract of countryside now dominated by agri-businesses such as nurseries before taking 5-6 miles of the Monarch’s Way, through ancient woodlands and across some of Worcestershire’s most beautiful traditional farmland with prospects of rolling hills, extensive woods and views to the Malverns and other local hills. It is also possible to cycle a version of the route, or just to do some of it if you leave two cars at your point of departure and your chosen end point.
If you would like to do this walk on the 16th, please email me and I will send you a copy of the itinerary.
