The day started off with, shock of shocks, a rapid ascent to the very top of Cleeve Hill. This would be like climbing all 17 floors to my office with a 20 pound pack. But once you hit the top of the hill, it’s all downhill for a while, since this is the highest point on the Cotswold Way. Making the experience more surreal are the combined facts that the top of Cleeve Common is dedicated to a rambling golf course and that sheep nonetheless graze here. (“How do you score “my golf ball was eaten by a sheep on the third hole?”)

The path rambles over high open lands, gradually descending into, believe it or not, a butterfly sanctuary. Another windy morning, so even if the season were right for butterflies, I doubt I’d have seen much of them. Nice flowers, though.

I reached a disused quarry (so the guide says—looked more like a disused garbage dump to me), and had a few minutes of confusion at the signage. Go left. Okay. Hmm, up this hill on a dirt road just feels wrong. Twenty yards up, and I headed back to make sure. Ah, not left left, more like gentle left toward the cleverly concealed second sign ten feet away pointing you to the right. Thanks, guys.

After some pleasant field walking, the path descends into a forest preserve. And by descends, I mean plummets for something like half a mile. All the muscles in the fronts of my legs found this very amusing. By which I mean ouch.

Having lost so much altitude since setting out, it was time to gain some in the second forest preserve of the day. You know a path means business when they cut steps into the hill. (Well, there weren’t any at Cleeve Hill; really, it just means things get muddy and slippery.) But again, the climb rewards with spectacular views (what guides like to call prospects. Do I have prospects? How exciting.) This gave me a chance, at a pathside bench, to use my bendy tripod and take a photograph of me on the trail. That looks is me thinking “wait, I’ve got nine more miles to walk today?”

Today was intermittently cloudy but still very windy, so I did most of the day in rain jacket with the sleeves hiked up and the side vents opened to allow sweat evaporation. It’s a good balance of keeping the cold wind off while letting my body, which is chugging like an engine all day, stay cool. If that makes sense.

Today was also a day for something like not thinking. As I often do when I walk alone, I sang a bizarre mix of songs, from Simon and Garfunkel to Sweeney Todd, with  the addition of a few old folk standards and hymns remembered from my childhood, when one of the few songbooks at my grandparent’s summer place included rousing old standards like “Shall We Gather at the River” and “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus,” which went well with the creaky organ they for some reason had in the living room of that house (No, they weren’t especially religious. It’s a mystery to me. May have to ask my mom what was up with that organ at a vacation house…) The good news is that there aren’t many people on the path, so I can indulge myself in the enormously satisfying pastime of seeing how my voice is holding up after years without any serious singing. Don’t worry; once I see people in the distance, I turn into perfectly normal hiker Hank, with a smile and a hello as we pass. Not crazy singing Hank, the guy you carefully avoid. So far, my cover hasn’t been blown. (Well, not on the trail. On the internet, everyone knows you’re a nut.)

After a few crossings of major roads, the path skirts up and around the spectacular Hartley Hill with terrific paths that are, based on my experience, an irresistible lure for people with dogs. I saw probably 20 people today walking dogs on the path (since the path cuts across roads large and small at various points, it makes for easy access for any local to take the dog up a hill to terrorize some sheep).

Hartley Hill has views that change as you round it, so you go from looking northeast to southwest, all of it from something like 280 meters up, with most of the surrounding country for many miles at least 150 meters lower. Moments of ridiculous, giggly bliss overtook me.

It also has the much-photographed Devil’s Chimney. And before you start wondering at nature’s sense of aesthetics, look closer. It’s manmade. The hill was a quarry site, and the quarry workers basically carved it out of the hillside as they removed stone. You can see some repair work at the base. Oh, and people used to climb this thing. I’m not one to talk, but people are nuts.

More pleasant forest walking, and for a brief while, I walked without my rain jacket, which lets the sweat evaporate more efficiently, but can get chilly if I stop exerting myself. The path makes for and in fact cuts right through Crickley Hill, an archaeological site that is open to the public. Way markers lead you through the two-meter high outer wall fortification, which was dug around 700BC, and into the nine acre settelement area. Like many archaeological sites, it’s mostly a lot of ground that rolls in ways that nature wouldn’t do—you need the big placards with illustrations to get any idea of what you are looking at. That square-ish depression is the remains of a house? Okay. That long hump of ground was a fortification? Sure, whatever you say.

The path is toying with you here, taking you out to the furthest edge of the site and then cutting back, so you are basically walking a checkmark that adds a few hundred yards to the walk, but at least gets you thinking about what it would take to dig a fortification two meters high.

A lovely descent through a wood brought me to a last shocker for the day, a place where I had to cross through busy traffic at a roundabout and then walk along the edge of a busy highway for a hundred yards before cutting off into the woods again.

Which brings me to the tiny village of Birdlip (Are you seeing a pattern with the size of villages along the trail? It avoids the big places quite deliberately.), where I awaited my pre-arranged ride from my night’s hosts. I showed up an hour early, so killed time rehydrating in the hotel/pub that is the only business of any kind I could find in Birdlip (the guide claimed “shops” but I call bullshit). And when I say rehydrated, lest you think I sucked back a pint of ale, let me assure you that at the end of this big day, I needed hydration, not alcohol.

My host showed up right on time and drove me to the accommodation. Hilariously, it’s about six or seven miles back in the direction I’ve just come. In the morning, he’ll drive me back to Birdlip. Sounds crazy, but that’s the way of things with walkers. Are you noticing a lot of references to insanity in this post? Hmm, maybe I should worry about that.

Bonus points for those who recognize the source of the title of today’s post. No cheating with Google.

Miles walked: Again, ambiguity. Packet says 16 miles, guide book adds it up at 15.5. I’m tired, so I am calling it 16 miles.