Day 4 of 8 of the Cotswold Way wrapped up yesterday at 23km (8.5hours) and it was one of those amazing yet full of personal challenging days on the trail…

If you have done any multi day treks you know exactly what I mean .. the trail is great but your body or your headspace or your gear or your whatever is not great and it impacts every darn step you take and every thought you have. Pretty amazing how much a small or a very big personal thing can impact your day’s 40,000+ steps regardless of how majestic the views are. For those of you who have had ‘that day’ – we see you, we honour you, we send hugs, we cheerlead you, and we cheers your perseverance no matter what that looks like for you!

We started the day with a short but a death defying jog down a busy road from our hotel to the trail head – good morning! Then we were right away into a long and peaceful forest track for quite and time. Meeting dog walkers and petting some pups on our way.

From there we had our usual forest track mixed with fields and some lane bits…

We had the chance to stop a golf course the path runs directly through the middle of for our first break – snacks and an accidental half-pint! Such a good little stop.

From there we kept on trucking and made our way into Painswick. We had the chance to visit Saint Mary’s Church that has 99 Yew tree growing – legend has it the devil will not let the 100th Yew tree grow. Pretty amazing.

We met the cutest little grandma on the trail and her grand-doggie Teddy and got some puppy pets in before we grabbed some lunch for our afternoon break and headed out of town. We stopped on a grassy hill just out of town and enjoyed a socks and shoes off with feet up yummy lunch!

Just after lunch we were rewarded with, of course, some big steep climbs out of the town – we have come to expect this after every town – and the ‘halfway’ point. Just 55 miles to Bath and 47 miles to Chipping Campden .. so not really, really the half way point but still photo worthy! This marker was in the middle of some farmer’s cattle field.

From there we were in the home stretch (well a couple hours of home stretch but who is counting .. we were every kilometer!).

We finished the day with a 1.4 kilometer downhill lane off the Path into Haresfeild straight into our home for the night, the Beacon Inn. This place was pretty fantastic! We were all jammed into the same room like a summer camp and oh the arrival pint on the deck was exactly what we needed to cheers the day! A few visits by their pet chicken George as we sat on the patio was a nice touch too!

Brandé