This week we stayed in Great Malvern for 3 nights, so that we could explore the Malvern Hills either side of the main event, being our niece’s wedding. This was held at a lovely venue near the village of Hanley Swan.
TUESDAY We had booked lunch at the Robin Hood pub, based purely on its location close to the southern end of the Malvern Hills. After our lunch with the landlady’s permission we left the van in the pub car park.
We had a look at the path to Gullet Quarry, then decided to see how far we could get up Swinyard Hill. We had to abandon the route just over half way up, as rain over the years had washed out a gully that was difficult to cross.
We could hear thunder in the distance, on the way up. Once we had turned round we could see the storm approaching. We put on our waterproofs, and decided to try getting back to the van. We still had 2 miles to go, when the rain started and it was torrential so we were rather damp by the time we got back to the van.
WEDNESDAY The day of the wedding, we got there in the end, as Sat Nav was telling me to look right, when the venue was on the left.
As the photos show we did have mainly sunshine, with a couple of thunder showers. We enjoyed the day, despite the lack of comfortable seating. The location was stunning with the lake, and the old barn where we had the wedding, the wedding breakfast and the evening music.
THURSDAY We went from the hotel on the buggies, to explore the North Hill area today. When Gill and I are on our own, we tend to be careful as to the difficulty of a route. The path up to North Hill is quite rough and steep in places. So again we took the decision to abandon the walk, but we got high enough to enjoy the views over the town and the Severn valley
Below are a couple of photos of some of the local wildlife. Both photos were taken on the Link Common where we had our picnic lunch.
