More From Winchcombe

Believe it or not, this was another ‘low key’ day, and yet there are enough photos for another THREE collages!!

We woke up to a heavy rain (see first Extra). In fact, it rained a lot of the night. But it was all over by 9am and the forecast was sunshine the rest of the day. So no complaints from us! We had a relaxing morning at the campsite with no pressure from either one of us to do more than that.

Main Collage:
Winchcombe is on a ‘Heritage Railway Line’ - a disused railway that has been restored and is run by volunteers. This is the GWR - the Gloucestershire and Worcestershire Railway. You can take a steam train from Cheltenham to Broadway, with Winchcombe about half way along the line. We didn’t actually take a train today, but we decided to go watch a couple of the trains come through, and have lunch and afternoon tea in the very lovely vintage station cafe called The Coffee Pot. After a simple but delicious lunch, eaten on the platform, we watched not one but TWO steam trains come in, one from each direction, with some of the passengers getting off and switching to the opposite train. In addition, there were plenty of other things to see around the station - vintage luggage, carts, milk bottles, a museum and even some ‘vintage’ guys (and one woman) - the railway is run by volunteers and it’s obvious that they all really love their jobs.

When we decided to go on this outing my sister said - “I don’t really feel the need to RIDE on the train but watching them will be nice”. After watching them both come through she said - “NEXT time we need to actually RIDE on the train!!”

Second Collage:
We went back into Winchcombe proper and had a look again at a couple of the shops that we missed yesterday. I took the opportunity to take a few more pictures. It’s a very pretty town, with more varied architecture than some of the other Cotswold towns and villages. The painted hares might look familiar if you saw my blips from Cirencester a couple of weeks ago. These are part of the annual Cirencester painted hare trail, now expanded to the whole of the Cotswolds. There are two here in Winchcombe, one outside the Tourist Information Office and one inside Budgens (a small supermarket). They will all be auctioned off later in September.

Third Collage:
When we got back to the campsite we went on a walk before dinner. We walked along a short section of the 102 mile (164 km) Cotswold Way, across some fields to the village of Alderton. It was a beautiful evening, we enjoyed the exercise and a brief glance at the church and a few of the cottages. We even found a geocache! There’s a pub in the village and some of the campers walk there for dinner. We had food for cooking, however, so we turned back and enjoyed a delicious dinner cooked on my little grill, which we ate while watching the sun set. We are pitched in such a perfect setting.

So again, our quiet day was busier than we thought it would be. A perfect day. We are two happy campers!