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Again a nice walk around the Mynd area of Shropshire starting at Church Stretton - this time on the opposite side of the valley taking int the views across to Caer Caradoc. You head up through an estate and pick up a marked path that heads up past a farm into the woods and skirt around the woods until you reach a road. Head across the road and a clear path then takes you on countour around the hill and then you switch back on yourself heading up the side of hope bowdler hill under the sight of the Gaer Stone. Once you reach the ridge simply follow this along the top of the ridge and there are some good views to the east across to Wenlock Edge.
Following the ridge you can see the Battle Stones ahaead of you and aim for them on what (on a nice day) is a steady gentle ridge walk. You then start to descend down towards North Hill Farm. If you have dogs with you as we did (Border Terrier and Montain Chihuahua) beware!! The farm has some very noisy Setters - albeit they are quite friendly when you get there! Simply follow the track down the hill until you reach the road and head into Cardington - the nice bit about this walk is that you can enjoy a refreshing pint in the pub behind the church!
Opposite the church is a track that takes you past some cottages (and someone's nice new indoor swimming pool (No they wouldn't let us use it!) across a few fields and stiles as you head up toward "The Wilderness". A note of caution here in the fields - our terrier was either bitten or stung by something here and my wife had to head back to the pub whilst I carried on to the car as the dog was taken quite poorly!
Over the stiles onto the Wilderness Caer Caradoc comes back into view and you follow the vallet along until you reach the old drovers path. Whilst I had to carry on to the car here because of the dog - we did come back a couple of days later and do the route up to the summit of Caer Caradoc. It's a steepish haul up from the drovers path but worth the effort as the views across to the Mynd and beyond are really good! You can then follow the ridge line down between Caer Caradoc and Helmeth Hill and follow the path across some fields and back into Church Stretton!
Nice walk!
