We've walked downstream from Pensford before to Stanton Drew stone circle but we haven't walked much in the opposite direction. It was 30 odd degrees outside and we fancied a swim so we thought we could check out the river Chew nr Publow. Arriving in Publow there was nowhere to park - the villiage church field had a big notice on the gate saying it was locked after the service so we drove for afew more minutes to park in Pensford.
We were soon off walking and into lovely meadows and fields. The sheep were all croweded round the only tree in the field trying to grab as much shade as they could in the heat of the day. Passing through a few fields we arrived into a field full of broad bean plants. There were lots of them but the pods were still very tiny - must be suffering due to the lack of rain we have had this year. We had to tread carefully as to one side we had the beans and the otherside stingers encroaching onto the path!
Coming out of the field we passed over a lane and into Lords Wood. Set it the wood there is a rather lovely peaceful pond which isn't marked on the OS map - we wondered if it was a recent addition or whether just a simple ommission on the map. Things got a bit complicated beyond this point - as woods always go there were lots of paths not on the map - Steve rather excellently navigated us through as we were all quite suprised when we arrived on our intended footpath (having followed a number of forest tracks through the forest). We came off the footpath to take a gate which took us out onto a field of horses. We had to dip under some electric fence and eventually ended up scrambling up a bank to join our footpath. I think we had come off the previous footpath too soon - the proper looking footpath type gate had confused us!
We arrived at a pretty fishing lake where we took advantage of a free fishing platform to have our picnic on. There were some enourmous fish in the lake.
We were intending to then head to Compton Dando to follow the river back to Pensford but time was ticking on (we had to be back to Bristol by 4 for my daughters climbing lesson) so we followed a combination of footpaths & fields to Woolard to meet the path running along the river.
As we followed the river along we heard a big commotion in the river and saw a bird of prey flying off - looking down into the river we saw a family of ducks with ducklings - fortuently they appeared to have seen off the bird of prey who was leaving empty handed.
Arriving at a farm we were faced with another electric fence, we probably went the wrong way at this point and ended up very close to the river trying to avoid getting stung to get back to a farm track. The way through the farm really wasn't clear - it was a new build farm/property - shame they hadn't put a bit more effort into making the way through clearer. It was a releif to see Publow church and to have the opportuniy to put out hot feet into the river Chew. Sadly it was a bit too animally and stagnant looking for a swim but Emma enjoyed splashing about and we got to watch some local lads going all girly about getting in to the cold water!
We've spent quite alot of time walking up mountains recently so it was nice to have the change of doing a flat very rural walk. It was esp lovely to see all the butterlys and damson flys flying about the fields and the river.
