Plan, Pack, Travel, Repeat: Cotswold Weekend

The weather forecast was good for the bank holiday weekend and we were a little undecided where to head to as we knew it was likely to be busy everywhere so we decided to head down to the Cotswolds, stopping off halfway to visit family that we hadn't seen since before the pandemic.

We arrived in Snowshill quite late ready to start our walk first thing in the morning.

Saturday

We set off on a walk from Snowshill taking in the SN series by HKMHill which was set just after we moved away from the area. On the route we walked past The Alternative Snowshill Collection cache , this was our 148th find back in July 2007.

First time caching without coats this year!

A really enjoyable dog-friendly walk in pleasant countryside with no cattle.

Once we were back in Snowshill we did the multis and the walked to the finals before heading back to the van for elevenses.

Who doesn't love Wisteria

We've enjoyed many visits to Snowshill over the years that we lived in the area and on an annual basis we would visit to see the beautiful lavender fields. Unfortunately we are a little bit early this year, so we'll have to try and return when they are in bloom.

It's definitely worth a visit to see the beautiful fields when the lavender is in flower.

Next on the agenda was the Chipping Campden Walk Adventure Labs stopping off at Broadway Tower on the way.

Broadway tower is one of the stages on the Monumental Erections on the Cotswold Way Adventure Labs.

The Chipping Campden Walk Adventure labs start at Dovers Hill. If you've not been before it's definitely worth a visit. The views from there are fantastic. There's a trigpoint, toposcope, an old Wrighty cache from 2007 along with an Earthcache.

Then onward to Chipping Campden. We have enjoyed many visits here over the years. When our children were little we'd come to the area for walks and stop off in Campden for chips from House of Simon Chinese Takeaway before heading home. It was nice to see the chippy was still there but it has now been renamed The Crystal Palace and sadly we were too early in the day for chips.

It took quite a while to do the caches as we were popping in and out the shops along the High Street as we went.

Next we headed into Broadway for a set of Adventure Labs. We'd planned to spend longer there but it was really busy so we quickly moved on to Guiting Power which was much quieter.

To round off the day we found a couple of Adventure Lab bonus caches that we'd had to leave on our last visit as the weather had taken a turn for the worst and we'd headed home so no such worries this time.

Sunday

Woke up to thick fog again today which, if the forecast is correct, should soon lift.

We had a bit of a relaxing start to the day and sat in the van reading, drinking coffee and eating cake before heading into Northleach for a set of Adventure Labs.

Northleach is where the 'Mockumentary/comedy' This Country is filmed. It's actually based around life in Cirencester but they decided that Cirencester was too big and used Northleach instead as it was a smaller town. We watched the first episode but that was it, just didn't grab us, maybe we need to give it another go. What do you think, should we give it another watch?

Kerry's House - This Country

Then onward for a walk around Chedworth and another set of Adventure Labs.

We parked at Chedworth Roman Villa to start the walk. I first visited Chedworth Roman Villa on a school trip from Junior School, funny because I don't remember much about it apart from the big orange lunch box that I took for my packed lunch. I was destined for a future with Tupperware 🤣. There is a cache series that starts here too called Chedworth Wood Ramble, we did this series in 2015, so this time we just concentrated on the lab caches.

Monday

Monday has rolled round so quickly so we were up early this morning to do a few caches starting in Eastleach.

Next stop was Cleeve Hill Toposcope for another one of the Monumental Erections on the Cotswold Way Lab Caches. Another place we've visited many times over the years.