Return to the Worcestershire way. Part 3 on 12 May 2023

 As the Malvern Walking festival 2023 would soon be upon us, we decided to complete our Worcestershire way walk to warm up having not been seriously walking since November 2022 We had done the southerly 2/3 of the route on October 14 2022 and October 15 2022

Originally we were to catch the train to Worcester, then the bus to Abberley walk to Bewdley stay the night in Bewdley then catch the train back via SVR to Kidderminster then WMR back to Malvern. Unfortunately there was to be a train strike on both the 12th and 13th of May so a rethink was needed

On 12th May we caught the 0720 44 bus (£2) to Worcester, then the 0900 296 bus to Abberley. The walk started at 0945, 

The first section along the ridge of Abberley hill to Shavers End quarry was treacherous due to the mud on the route making it very sticky and slippery, resulting in deployment of branches as walking poles. The Bluebells were still abundant:-

The slope downhill from Shavers End to Netherton house was interesting as steel road plates had been laid down the hill which helped grip. We had lunch using a wall at Palmers Farm as a windbreakThe rest of the route was completed in bright sunshine arriving at the route end marker in Bewdley at 1520. 

The route was 11.1 miles total:-

We had booked a night at the Kateshill B&B just south of Bewdley, built in 1740 it was a very impressive location. We walked into town and had dinner at the Mug house Restaurant on the River. The food was excellent, but service was a bit slow (35 minutes to get the starter!). Sleep was instant on returning to the hotel

The Kateshill hotel suffered from no WiFi in the building due to a network connection issue, luckily there was enough cellular coverage to survive. In the morning the breakfast was excellent. After which, and managing to eventually pay for the stay (the card machine couldnt contact the server due to the network issues) we walked into town and went to see the SVR Bewdley station

We caught  the 1136 Diamond 296 Bewdley to Worcester bus (£2) which became hair raising after a driver change in Stourport!

After some shopping and a coffee in Worcester we caught the 44 bus back to Malvern (£2)