The Worcestershire Way, UK

The worcestershire way

The worcestershire way is a small 31 miles trail in the middle of England. It cross farm fields and forest areas mixing steep muddy climbs with meadows and service paths. It starts at the town of  Bewdley by the river Severn and finish in Great Malvern after climb the northern Malvern hill, one of the highest points of the valley. 

Getting there- Birmingham is the main biggest city close by, from there a 45 minutes train to Kiddermister and after a 10 minutes bus to Bewdley. Note that this bus is not working on Sunday so it is a 3,5 miles walk. The way back from Great Malvern is much easy as it is well connected by train.

Signage and Navigation - The Worcestershire is well marked with a green pear sign but still a map or GPS is a must,  there is plenty of times that I had to track back to find the right way. I downloaded the GPS coordinates from the GPS walking routes. This route is actually 4 miles longer, keeping going south. The right GPS rout could be find in The Long Distance walker association but only members can download it.  In this website you can find some extra information about the trail.

Terrain : It is trail most of the time, be ready to cross muddy areas , specially in meadows, you will have to cross some farm areas with live stock but not much. Some dirty roads connecting trails.

Resupply and Logistics- In Bewdley, the starting point, there is supermarket and all kind of facilities. The only resupply places I saw in the trail was 2 pubs around mile 20 and 21 and a small post office with basic food around mile 26. So unless you want to make it until mile 20 the first night you will have to bring food for day and half. the pubs could be a good option for breakfast or lunch for the second day. The first pub and bed and breakfast is the The Admiral Rodney and the second is The Talbot. 

The Worcestershire Way

Water - there is plenty rivers around but I will prefer to get the water from some tap of the farms around. The rivers seems quite contaminated with agriculture products even using a mini sawyer.

Camping, logging : I normally do stealth camping and there is plenty of places where to hide and set your tent, not that this is not legal but I never had a problem specially because you are not in a national park where normally there is more control about it. Be ready for a lot of condensation, I went with Tarp tent, I would recommend a double fly. If you want to skip the tent those 2 pub offer also break and breakfast, so start early and do 20 miles until the first pub.

Gear : I went with my normal Gear, just be aware of the rain, and maybe bring extra socks , your shoes will get soak in the morning because of the dew drop. 

The worcestershire way