What does the bloody old weatherman know these days? "Mendip Hills: heavy rain, disappointingly cold," he gloomed early on Sunday morning. But when it came to walk time, 18 cheerful people set off from the Swan Inn at Rowberrow under high-piled white clouds in a blue sky.

With Times walking writer Christopher Somerville and walks leader David Wenk setting a none-too-challenging pace, the group left the aubretia walls and rose gardens of Rowberrow behind and descended at a leisurely stroll into the combe under the north flank of the whaleback hill of Blackdown, highest point of the Mendip range.

Plenty of talk and laughter were traded by way of introductions. Local walkers included Bill, Valerie and Joy who’d come up from the city of Wells, Adrian and Isabel from Nailsea out on the moors, and Anna from the ancient Wessex capital of Wedmore. Roobarb the wiry-coated lurcher had thoughtfully brought her pets Natalie and Martin down from Meysey Hampton in the south Cotswolds.

Also along were four Bristolians – Mike and Gerry, and their chums Chris and Iain – and some exotic additions in the form of Eva and Pavlina from the Czech Republic, and Will all the way from Boston, Mass. It was a proper cavalcade of nations and of ages (one of the party was over eighty, several were under forty), and all the better for that.

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In the tall grass of the verges along the wood bottom, clumps of common spotted orchids were spied. Harts-tongue ferns thrust out their crinkly green spear-blades of leaves, and white and pink dogroses hung from the elder and may bushes. The track soon left the trees and ran in the open below the brackeny hump of Blackdown.

Pretty much all Mendip is limestone country, and the walk passed two splendid examples of how stream flow and rainwater can carve this grey rock. First was Read’s Cavern, a low-roofed mouth of stone hidden under bushes, whose deep dark gullet was greedily swallowing a torrent of last night’s rain. Iain boldly went where none of his fellow walkers would, down into the cleft to pose for photos.

Next up was the famous gorge of Burrington Combe, seen down a green slope, whose dramatically tilted strata banded the lips of the canyon. Bill recalled the tale of Rev Augustus Montague Toplady sheltering from a storm in Burrington Combe. Valerie brought to mind the hymn he’d been inspired to write there. But how did it go? "Rock of Ages, cleft for me,/ Let me hide myself in Thee … dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dee …" That was as far as anyone could dig.

Up on the summit of Blackdown after a climb up a rubbly track, the group stopped to take on tea and chocolate digestives, and to admire a most impressive exhibition of puddle-leaping by Roobarb.

A short sharp spit of rain couldn’t spoil the wonderful seventy-mile view from the Blackdown Hills in the south to the Cotswolds in the north, with the ridges of South Wales and the long grey back of Exmoor forming the skyline across the broad silver ribbon of the Bristol Channel. Rising in a steep dark hummock from the water was the nature reserve island of Steep Holm, a punctuation point in this mighty prospect.

A crunchy track led down to Tynings Farm, where horses put their noses over the gate to be petted. Then it was on through the woods of Rowberrow Warren and back along the stream to Rowberrow and a great welcome at the Swan Inn. Landlord Mark had unfurled his brand new marquee for the occasion. Pints of Butcombe bitter, chicken curry, ham’n’eggs. More joking, more talking, a drop of sunshine. Six miles of glorious walking, and already everybody felt like friends.

Map: OS Explorer 141

Lunch: Swan Inn, Rowberrow: 01934-852371; www.butcombe.com/swan