South Staffordshire Railway Walk

the section from Wolverhampton down towards Himley is wonderful, it's wide sealed pathway with beautiful surrounding countryside and bird song and some interesting graffiti murals. There's a little café in Wombourne (platform) although it's got limited opening times - I didn't go in myself but it did look pretty good. there are a number of benches and litter bins spread out along this route and it's flat and suitable for regular shoes. a regular road bike would be able to cope but there are one or two little bits and mud but nothing that you stops you. The reason for just 3 stars is because the section from Himley south to Pensnett is pretty awful - the surrounding area is horrible and consists of mainly heavy industry quarries or scrap yards. There is also a travellers site there in which you've got to be careful of some noisy dogs and there's lots of fly tipping. the path itself is in terrible condition with lots of standing water and mud even on a warm sunny day in May - you can't get through this area without good walking boots and it would be impossible to cycle unless you had a really good mountain bike. so overall I've only given the walk 3 out of 5 stars but that's because it's an aggregation of the brilliant Wolverhampton to Wombourne section and the terrible Pensnett to Himley section.