Day 4 - Painswick to North Nibley

We set off after breakfast at 8.00am. Highlights for both of us today were definitely the blue bell woods seeing the English variety made Me ( Rachel) very happy as i didn't see a Spanish blue bell in sight which are taking over our English woodlands - the smell of wild garlic was fabulous. Scrunching through the beech wood leaves as well was a pleasure and the sound of birds was just wonderful. We heard a woodpecker from time to time and We kept hearing our friendly mascot ' Mr pheasant' as well. Seeing squirrels playing was fun. I just loved the dabbled light streaming through the very old trees and the colours - well they were stunning - Beautiful times! 

We have met some amazing people on out journey so far and today was no exception. We met two ladies who were just lovely and gave us a contribution to our cause. We have seen some incredible views looking across to Wales over the Severn and the weather was just glorious. We spent the morning talking about what we are both thankful for and what material things we could omit from our lives. We both definitely feel we are on a pilgrimage so processing and assessing where we are is a big part of this for us.

Pauls writing this next bit;

We were extremely challenged today for several reasons. The first being the length, the longest of the 6 days at 21 miles, and also the ascents and descents over 700m in both up and down. The first hill took us onto an amazing viewing point but was a challenge after 15 miles walking.

The 2nd out of Dursley went on and on forever. 

The graph above shows the days profile. 

Finally we had some challenging gates to contend with. Rachel got stuck in one and without running to help, I took a photo instead

However Rachel got her own back when I tried.

The last 3 miles seemed an eternity and it was with great delight to see the Black Horse come into view. Another amazing day!!