If you are ever driving across the UK and you have a little time to stop at the Malvern Hills, do it!! Marc and I fancied stretching our legs on the drive over to visit my brother, and my mum always has good ideas for walks, so she suggested hiking along the top of the Malvern Hills. It turned out to be a brilliant idea! We only had a couple of hours to spare, so we did half the walk, starting from the village in Upper Wyche.

Most of my recent posts have been catching up with our time in New Zealand, and the epic walks here in Canada. But it’s good to remember how ridiculously pretty the UK can be as well. I don’t think I had ever been hiking in Worcestershire before. It is green, lush and beautiful! I can now see why people love it there so much!!

The Malvern Hills – Upper Wyche to Great Malvern

We started in a pub in Upper Wyche and then hiked along the ridge of the Malvern Hills. However, we did this walk the super easy way. We just hiked in one direction, and then met my parents at the end of the walk. They then drove us back to our car afterwards. If you’d like a longer hike, and you have another couple of hours, you could wander the whole way along these hills!

The mini summits that we visited were:

• Summer Hill 382m
• Worcestershire Beacon 425m
• Sugarloaf Hill 368m
• Table Hill 373m
• North Hill 387m

Bluebells on the Malvern Hills

There were plenty of bluebells in the woods near Upper Wyche. I love bluebells woods. I climbed down a steep hill to reach the flowers in the woods here on the left(!)

Then, right before you get the top of Summer Hill, one side of the hill is COVERED in bluebells. This is one of the few places where I have seen them covering hills, instead of carpeting forest floors.

Getting up to the ridge-way

We made it up to the ridgeway pretty quickly, with just one hiccup. I may have left my phone in the car, so I had to run back and fetch it (as we were meeting mum and dad at the end of the walk, so we needed a phone!) So, I got to hike up to this pretty point twice. Marc looked really unimpressed by my dappiness. Oops.

Once you make it up Summer Hill, this walk becomes really easy. You basically just stay on the top of the ridge the whole way along the Malvern Hills. There are lots of small up and downs, but you have pretty views for the entire walk.

How lovely are these views!?

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

This is the kind of view I think of when I think of England. It’s officially an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Marc and I were chatting about it along the walk. It is ridiculously beautiful, but I don’t think you can really describe it as natural. To me, it is a man-made kind of beauty, a bit like the steps of rice fields in Japan. The hedges are mostly in straight lines and the green fields all look so manicured.

Worcestershire Beacon

This was the tallest summit along the Malvern Hills. This part of the walk will get your heart pumping, but it doesn’t take very long, so it is totally worth the effort.

We took an obligatory jump photo.

The views from the top of the Worcester Beacon are pretty lovely.

Sugarloaf Hill

To get to the next summit, Sugarloaf Hill, you have to walk down into a dip and then back up again.

Once we wandered up Sugarloaf hill, we caught up with a large group of school children.

Table Hill and North Hill

We overtook the kids by zooming up in between Table Hill and North Hill (the two summits at the North end of the Malvern Hills.) The views back to the Worcester Beacon were pretty good!

We’d made it to the end of the Malvern Hills, so we backtracked a little to start our descent.

The path we found was reeeeeally steep! I made it the whole way down the steep section… and then fell on my arse on my final step. My hand landed on a thistle and I ended up with about twenty tiny spiky splinters! So be careful on the steep sections!!

Once we’d made it this far, we just had to walk around the edge of the Malvern Hills to find one of the paths down. We were above the trees, so we had some gorgeous views!

We enjoyed the views down to Great Malvern as well as the views straight up to North Hill.

So, for the end of the hike we just had to follow the path down through the woods. My parents were waiting in a car park down below.

This entire walk was less than 2 hours, and it wasn’t very strenuous, so it’d be perfect for a stroll after a sunday lunch! Or, if you have more time, you could do the entire walk, from end to end. If you are interested in that, I found a map for it here.