The UK is blessed with a huge range of public pathways criss-crossing the countryside, enshrined in our Public Rights of Way and captured in detail on the wonderful Ordnance Survey maps (the best in the world in my opinion). The pinnacle of these paths are the 13 National Trails: long distance paths including the formidable Pennine Way, awesome Cotswold Way and the astonishing South West Coast Path. But just under this top level are a wide range of long distance paths that deserve top status but have yet to quite make it. And we have one literally on our doorstep: the Mendip Way.

It was opened in 1979, and is defined in two contrasting halves: the West Mendip Way running from the coast at Uphill (between Weston-Super-Mare and Brean Down) to Wells, travelling through the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), and then the East Mendip Way continuing on from Wells and ending up in the lively town of Frome. In total 50 miles (or 80km) with around 31 miles of that on the West Mendip Way.

This week the Mendip Way was relaunched following an extensive piece of work to improve and better way-mark the route in both directions. The Mendip Hills AONB worked in partnership with the Mendip Society, Mendip Ramblers and the Rotary Club to get this work done and now Visit Somerset are actively promoting it. The whole Mendip Way can be completed in just three days but most people might choose to add some days and take time to relax and enjoy the walks and the stopovers a little more. If you want to do the trail as a continuous walk, maybe even with luggage transfers between stops to keep the load light, then Encounter Walking Holidays can tailor a walking holiday just for you. But alternatively if you prefer too stitch together your own holiday then one strong possibility, especially if you'd like to cover just the West Mendip Way, is to base yourself in Cheddar. Indeed Gorge View Cottage is just 2 minutes away from the Mendip Way route. 

The options then are to do two or three "bus walks", all covered in detail and freely downloadable from the Cheddar Walking website (walks 9 and 10). Day one could be a bus to Weston-Super-Mare, with an optional 3 mile walk along the beach, and then with the Mendip Way proper starting from Uphill, and continuing 13 miles to Shute Shelve, via Crook Peak, Wavering Down and Kings Wood to where the Strawberry Line rail path passes underneath the Mendip Hills, and the Mendip Way, in the old rail tunnel. At this point, unless you are on a serious roll, you can break and bus the short way back to Cheddar for a gentle evening.

Picking up the next day and busing back to Shute Shelve you'd have a gentler 7-mile walk via Shipham, skirting the Mendip Hills high-point at Black Down but worth a detour up for the views from Beacon Batch. Then on down through Black Rock reserve ending up walking down one side of spectacular Cheddar Gorge through the National Trust owned land.

The final day would be a 12-mile walk. Bus out to Wells, and then a route that takes you out of England's smallest "city" past the cathedral and along the exquisite Vicar's Close before heading on up to Wookey Hole, then to Ebbor Gorge and a perfect lunch halt at Priddy Village. The final leg across the top of the Mendips and through Draycott Sleights reserve finally brings you back down to Cheddar again.

You can find out a whole lot more on the AONB web site and soon they'll have the detailed East Mendip Way guide published too.

Some cryptic acronyms in the title for this blog, but what it refers to is the National Trust's South West Outdoor Festival 2017. The second such festival, the first being in Heddon Valley, North Devon in 2016. This time it was centred at the top of Cheddar Gorge (much of the gorge is NT land).
It all happened this past weekend and offered a huge range of outdoor activities at a serious level: not just mountain biking, hill running, kayaking, but (given where we are) rock climbing, pot-holing, caving, bat watching and ... some lovely walking!

The walking was organised by Cheddar Walking, the Walkers are Welcome initiative in Cheddar that we at Gorge View Cottage helped start and still help lead. Whilst most people (circa 1,500 at the festival over the long weekend) were there for more extreme sport, of course some wanted less physical things to do, and to take in the beautiful area. We organised five half-day walks over the three day from the Festival Site near Back Rock Reserve: to Priddy village, along the West Mendip Way; to Yeo Valley's stunning HQ canteen in Blagdon, a walk taking you over Beacon Batch the highest point of the Mendip Hills; and of course the classic circular Gorge Walk.

Despite the weather (wet and windy at times, but sunny and clear at others) all our walks seem to stay dry, the views revealed themselves and those joining us had a really good time, some wonderful sights, and good-to-moderate exercise.

All this was also strongly supported by the Mendip Hills AONB and the Somerset Wildlife Trust who protect and promote this stunning area. A big thanks to them both.

Of course any of these walks can be self-navigated if you come to Cheddar, just ask us for the directions when you are staying or check out the Cheddar Walking web site.

One of the most impress natural reserve areas in our locality is not up on the beautiful Mendip Hills but out on the Somerset Levels just past the Isle of Wedmore. The Avalon Marshes comprise a rich set of important and accessible wildlife reserves run by, variously, Somerset Wildlife Trust, the RSPB, Natural England and others. Shapwick Heath, Meare Heath, Ham Wall all join up together in to a wonderful area, all knitted together around the Avalon Marshes Centre with local art shop, a great eco cafe, and some recreated Neolithic (New Stone Age) constructions. Lots to do and see so find out more here.

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And now all this has been recognised by the Avalon Marshes winning the National Lottery Award for Best Environmental Project. Beating off over 1,300 other entries is quite something, and the many volunteers who over many years have made it what it is rightly deserve it. The award itself was presented by comedian Bill Bailey who comes from Somerset and is a keen walker himself. The Visit Somerset article tells you more.

We've featured the area before in this blog for the local art centre, and the Starling murmurations for which it is famous. Anyone visiting the Mendip and Cheddar and who has a love for natural landscape and wildlife should try and get there. Sadly not that easy without a car (its about 9 miles away), but you can get to Glastonbury on buses and then it is a lovely traffic-free walk or cycle out along the disused Glastonbury to Burnham-on-Sea railway branch line. 

As some of you may know from earlier blogs Gorge View Cottage was a founding supporter of the Cheddar Walking initiative. It was set up from scratch last year to help gain "Walkers are Welcome" accreditation for the village (which it duly did), and to encourage visitors and the local community to enjoy more of the lovely local walks - long and short, flat and hilly, focused on history, nature, geology and more.

One target was to get a walking festival going and we have done just that in collaboration with the Mendip Ramblers. They hold a free three-day festival every year somewhere in the area, over the August Bank Holiday weekend, and yet had never held one in Cheddar. So a perfect opportunity for us to help the Ramblers with local walking knowledge and with venues and parking. This was a great chance for us in the steering group to learn what is involved from the very experienced Ramblers group.

It was by all counts a real success with very strong numbers turning up to enjoy themselves. Over 325 walkers went out on 12 walks over the three days. Each day three walks set of in the morning (15, 11 and 7 miles approximately) and in the afternoon a shorter 5 to 6 mile walk was led out. People came from far and wide to take part, stay locally and enjoy not only the walks but the beautiful countryside, views, and warm welcome from local businesses and hostelries.

Of course you don't have to wait for a festival to enjoy the walking here: Cheddar Walking has developed a range of self-guiding walk sheets for anyone to use - you can download them here.

I don't often mention guests specifically in this blog but I am making an exception. This last week our guests were Lucille (Lucy) Campeanu and her partner Gino from Australia. They were here for 9 days and managed to pack in a lot in that time including two separate circuits of the Gorge Walk, visits to Wells, Glastonbury and Bath Spa where they literally enjoyed the spa - the new-ish Thermae Bath Spa facility which includes a rooftop pool where you can gaze at Bath Abbey nearby.

They also made it to Stonehenge and took part in one of the special groups allowed in to the stones themselves (normally off-limits) for sunrise. Pretty special but made the more-so by them being in the area when a magical crop circle appeared overnight. A huge 7-pointed star: you can see the images here.

Anyway they also managed some quiet time back at the cottage and because Lucy is amongst other things a creative coach and artist she had chosen to document their travels in England and afterwards in France with an "art journal", images of which she has been posting and "vlogging" on her Facebook page as she goes along. We were particularly taken by the two paintings she did in her journal of the cottage and the patio view to the garden. They are below and you can get a lot more of this by checking out Lucy's FB page here:

                                                           www.facebook.com/artshedangel 

​Another lovely idea of lucy's was bringing with her some painted "Peace Rocks", and then leaving them in various places along their travels. Each has simple instructions on the back encouraging the finders to adopt the rocks for the next part of their own travels and then to leave the rock in turn for others to find - but not before photographing them in their new location and posting this up on Lucy's FB page for her to track their slow migration.

So a different take on how to capture your journey. And do keep you eyes open for a Peace Rock as you travel around.

Back in May I blogged about a new initiative in Cheddar that Gorge View Cottage had got behind and helped set up. Well on Friday 4th September it was formally launched. Cheddar Walking is the name of the organisation that will be developing and promoting a quality walking experience in and around Cheddar for visitors and residents alike. Most importantly we have satisfied the tough requirements to achieve full Walkers are Welcome accreditation, a quality mark for over 100 destinations across the UK where walkers are assured of a warm welcome by businesses and community alike, and with plenty of maintained paths and walking guides to help people explore the well-known and not-so-well-known walks around the area. 
The very active steering group have checked and tested seven walks for the launch  - everything from a short 30 minute walk near the gorge and caves, to the iconic 2.5 hour gorge walk, and including a wheelchair/buggy friendly walk around the reservoir. All of these are downloadable and printable from the website, but for all Gorge View Cottage guests these walks are all ready in the special folder that includes lots and lots of take-and-use sheets for enjoying the area.
Next year we'll be co-organising a 3-day walking festival in Cheddar over the August Bank Holiday so if you want to stay for all three days and make the most of it then better think about booking early.

Weston-Super-Mare is our local seaside town, just 12 miles away or a short bus ride. Not really noted for cutting-edge events. Well that has all changed this last few weeks. The global Bristol phenomenon that is Banksy (an anonymous graffiti artist) secretly developed and curated a special experience called Dismaland - a not very subtle parody of Disneyland.
It all took place in the rather dismal setting of the old Tropicana on Weston-Super-Mare (WSM) seafront - a big open quadrangle built out on to the beach from the promenade that was once a slightly down-at-the-heel open-air swimming pool (or "lido") that even earlier was probably quite an attraction in its own right in WSM. But for many years it has been a slowly decaying eyesore on the seafront with a sequence of botched plans to turn it in to something modern and up-to-date. Well it seems Banksy saw it as the ideal location for his dismal show. And the whole experience was funnily awful, starting with the queue management staff, and security guards, and stewards all who were glum, bored, rude and apathetic. Not a smile amongst them. Inside were art exhibitions and tawdry takes and spoofs on the kind of underwhelming items you might get in any small theme park. Many artists (some were really big names like Damien Hirst) had all made works of art especially for the show, all of them with some cutting or ironic comment on modern society. Outside the visual jokes continued from wind power, to boat refugees, to a darkly lit eerie tableaux of Cinderella crashed and dead in her pumpkin carriage as she tried to escape paparazzi on scooters (shades of Princess Diana).
Certainly absorbing it took myself and friend (an art teacher) over four hours to take it all in (and have a refreshment stop). And only £5 to enter IF you could get hold of a ticket. Because the pulling power of Banksy is extraordinary and this has become a very hot ticket to have.
If you were lucky enough to have been here and got in then hopefully you'll realise that whilst this one part of (North) Somerset was very dismal (and darkly humorous) the rest of Somerset is anything but.

Most people have heard of Glastonbury Festival. it doesn't actually take place in Glastonbury but just outside the nearby village of Pilton at Worthy Farm. In recent years the organiser of the big festival has also worked to do stuff for the community: the Pilton Party and the Glastonbury Extravaganza. The latter takes place every year in the wonderful grounds of the ruined abbey in the centre of Glastonbury. A rather genteel affair with many of the few  thousands of people who come bringing the full picnic gear: tables, deckchairs, hampers, wine, glasses. All quite extraordinary. For more ordinary folk like us a small rucksack of goodies and a blanket are good enough.

This year we got tickets to see veteran rocker Ray Davies, lead and song writer with the 60/70's band The Kinks. With a few good support acts he came on with a very sharp band to give a great performance with lots of subtle humour. He's getting on but the songs stand the test of time and the band did it all justice. All this and it generates lots of local charities.

The extravangaza happens every year - it is only 12 miles from Cheddar across the levels and we'd recommend it to anyone.

Last weekend we took the opportunity to drive south to Exeter (to help our daughter move) and took the more direct and scenic route across Somerset. It reminded us how beautiful and varied the landscape is around here. Across from the Mendips to the Polden Hills with Glastonbury Tor to our left. We stopped at the Somerset Crafts centre by Westhay reserve (with the great little Eco Bites cafe), and this time we actually bought some lovely art work (for the cottage see the next blog for more on this).
One thing came clear as we talked with people. It seems that across the UK the extraordinary flooding in the South Somerset Levels has meant that visitor numbers are down this year. Bizarrely the extensive news coverage in February (understandable at the time) has resulted in many people thinking that the county is still under water months later. But of course with the rain easing, and the flooding receded fairly quickly, and the land has recovered remarkably fast. Ultimately the levels are designed for this and Mother Nature is remarkably resilient.
Of course for those (relatively) few whose homes were flooded the recovery continues and our hearts go out to them. But we care too that many running tourist and visitor activities and attractions, this is now proving a tough year.
Moving onwards our journey now took us towards Taunton through Burrowbridge - pretty much the epicentre for some of the flooding, in this case blocked the main A361 for weeks at the time. For us Burrowbridge is famous for two things: firstly the famous Cider Bus, a long-standing Glastonbury Festival institution serving up loads of lovely Burrow Hill cider and cider brandy to thirsty festival goers. The other more long-standing feature (literally) is Burrow Mump (as seen in the picture here). An ancient earthwork, with ruined St. Michael's church on top, it looks like a miniature Glastonbury Tor. And indeed both Tor and Mump lie on the St. Michael Ley Line - a proposed ancient straight line connecting natural and man made features from St. Michael's Mount on the Cornish coast to Bury St Edmund's Abbey in Norfolk and beyond and taking in Glastonbury Tor, Avebury stone circle and Burrow Mump. The name of the line comes from the remarkable number of churches dedicated to St Michael that dot the line.
Anyway for anyone thinking of visiting Somerset, whether or not your thinking of staying at Gorge View Cottage, rest assured it is alive and well and certainly kicking with natural beauty. And it is certainly not flooded!

Cheddar has famously had seven pubs - the "Cheddar Seven" and it was a favourite summer trek for some to spend the day wandering between them. They included all the established pubs: Riverside Inn, White Hart, Gardeners Arms, Kings Head and the Bath Arms, along with the Galleries Inn and the bar of the old Cox's Mill Hotel. 
Then as happens the numbers slipped. Cox's Mill, opened by the Longleat Estate along with the Cheddar Gorge attractions with mutterings that it was to be redeveloped for a cable car. All that has gone quiet but the hotel remains closed.
Then the anchor pub in the main village, the Bath Arms (but know to everyone as the "BA") closed with the tenants moving on. And for the past two years we've been down to just five. But first a new Western themed bar opened (we're still to judge that), and now happily after a £500,000 refit the Bath Arms opens again today - refreshed, smarter, nicer pub garden and en-suite rooms. And so we are back to seven and that somehow feels balanced.