A walk to Bewdley, well sort of.

As mentioned before I had planned on taking the kids up to Bewdley along the river, but that never happened. In the spirit of things my father roused me and offered to walk the route with me; or at least up to Stoney Bottom.

Unlike the 'proper' side of the river the Areley side is overgrown and barely looks like a path there are certainly no signs informing anyone of this at the bridge end. Once past that the dirt trail became more apparent. It is a story in contrasts - at times the path is clearly defined and two people could walk abreast down it; at others it's barely there covered in waist (or higher) vegetation. Good sturdy bridges and gates follow from a section of soft earth that borders a 20-foot near vertical drop straight to the river and again unlike the other side this doesn't even have points for life-saving rings regardless of whether they're occupied or not.

This is the forgotten side of the river with all the money and tidying up occurring on the town side. I can understand why; it's the side that brings in money from rents etc and there's quite literally no room for development on the the Areley side. However one of these days someone's going to fall down that slope and drown and questions will be asked as to why this public footpath wasn't maintained.

Oh and we met three cows close to one of the stiles set up to prevent them travelling - two jumped over it; so those are working well.

With good time we carried on to the Woodman where a car-boot was going on; then headed back. It was a good walk and took us an hour with Bewdley probably being another half-hour further; far too far for the Bratii; though I may take them up this far by car and venture onto Stagborough Hill.

Looking at the Worcestershire site detailing walks around this area the missing information is car parking. Presumably people just appear by magic at the start of these routes. Oh and am I the only one amused that the Ribbesford Circular trail appears not to venture into Ribbesford Woods?