Bewdley Walk

For Christmas Secret Santa gave me some laminated maps of walks around Bewdley. So, when I had a bit of a snafu with my course last Saturday and wasn't able to do any studying I decided to take myself off and do the Dowles Brook and Beyond route below.


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Start time: 1.20pm
Finish time: 3.05pm
Distance: 5.5 Miles

The walk starts from the car park and goes along the river for a bit. Across on the other side I saw one of the old steam trains on the Severn Valley Railway, chooching along, blowing smoke and sounding its whistle.

After about a mile or so the path turns away from the river and starts up along by Dowles Brook, which also follows the old disused railway line. You have to cross the Dowles Road, but apart from that it is a lovely, gentle country walk up to the now rather decrepit Knowles Mill. A couple I met told me that they had taken pictures of the mill wheel but I didn't see it.

The top of the walk is at Lodge Hill Farm. From there the route follows the disused railway down to the car park at Dry Mill Lane. From the top of Dry Mill Lane it is nearly all road down into Bewdley. I was somewhat disappointed that the rest of the walk was on the road, except for the walk across the fields from the top of Tanners Hill.

At Tanners Hill you turn off the road and walk down to the Dowles Road, and when you do you get the best view of the walk, right across the Severn Valley. Again, I saw the trains from SVR and heard them whistling away. By now I was starting to think that I might find all this whistling a bit tedious if I lived in Bewdley, but hey.

Now, I had intended to do some fancy pants stuff with my new N96, but I hadn't charged it and the battery died as soon as I parked up in Bewdley. Ooops. For my next walk I'm going to try and master geo-tagging photos and also recording the walk using the GPS and Maps applications. And remember to take the car-phone charger doobrage with me so the phone's definitely got some charge.

I'm also determined to do more walking this year. It always shames me when I go away on a walking holiday and realise that I haven't done a decent walk since the last one. There are so many beautiful places so close to Brum to go for a stroll and I had this lovely healthy glow to me the rest of the day.