Nodge's Travels

Day Three - Wychbold to Worcester It's barely light as we stand in the damp outside the Crown Inn waiting for our taxi to arrive. Cate's happy though - she's found her baseball cap that she'd left outside the pub the previous day. Let's hope the good fortune continues throughout the day!   Bang on time a minibus pulls into the car park - it's way too big for just the two of us, but the cheery driver beckons us on board.  Ten minutes later we're deposited at Hanbury Wharf. It still feels barely light as we climb out of our over-sized chariot; the cheerful taxi driver wishes us good luck with our walk, before heading back to Droitwich. A look at the BBC weather shows that the forecast is significantly better.......little chance of rain until after 3pm, and potentially a bit of sunshine for the first time on this trip! It already feels much warmer than the previous days, so it's shorts underneath my wet trousers, and just a t-shirt under the rain jac...

  Day Two - Hopwood to Wychbold After a very fine night's sleep, we awoke to a somewhat aromatic, some would say musty, smelling room! But who cares? Our boots, coats, walking socks and wet trousers were all dry. And that was all that mattered. Outside it looked damp, but not raining. No point hanging around having breakfast, let's get moving before it rains! By the time we'd washed, dressed and done our make up etc we emerged from "Crossroads" into a light drizzle. Oh well, yesterday's "light drizzle didn't soak us, did it?! Fifteen minutes later, next to the Hopwood pub, looking very inviting even at 8.50a.m., we descended onto the towpath to continue our journey towards Worcester. We could hear the purr of traffic on the M42 ahead of us, but it took half an hour before we went underneath its non-descript bridge. Now we were truly away from Birmingham. Ten minutes on, as we neared the edge of Alvechurch, the drizzle turned to stair rods, eclipsing a...