Today is a walk on a bit of the map I seem
to have missed. I thought we had covered all the Wye Valley between Chepstow
and Monmouth but there is a small community of houses between St Briavels and
Llandogo tucked away in the trees. As there were lots of tracks and footpaths
on the map I thought we could check it out. We parked up in the Old Station at
Tintern. This has a café in an old railway carriage and a playground for kids.
As it was a cold day in January I was surprised to see quite few people there.
Parking was £1 for three hours or £3.50 for a day. Luckily I still had an old
pound in the coin in the car that I’d been trying to get rid of. It slipped
into the machine a treat.
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| You won't get very far in this carriage but you can get a coffee in summer. |
We set off through the park towards
Brockweir. After a little play on the adventure playground we followed the
track along the river. There are a few metal sculptures along this track to add
interest. My favourite is the dog that’s done a metal poo. The bridge at
Brockweir is a lovely old fashioned Iron Bridge of the flat kind. The river was
absolutely racing along today so Chuck was not allowed in, otherwise he’d have
been back in Chepstow before we knew it.
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| The old signal box. There's a tut shop in there now selling things you don't need. |
The path heads up onto a small road which
leads to the community in the hills. It looks like a wonderful place to live.
Very cut off and peaceful. One road in and out. At the end of the road the
footpath climbed steeply along a track between two ancient looking dry stone
walls. It’s all very Lord of the Rings. This leads up to more narrow lanes and
more climbing. The first 90 minutes was all up hill.
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| Brooding clouds over Brockweir. We did however manage to stay dry. |
There are a lot of small farms and small
holdings up here. Everyone seems to have a few sheep. There’s plenty of horses
too. A lot of the roads are linked by Restricted Byways which I have talked
about before. The byways up here were on the whole reasonably surfaced. A few
were muddy but we stayed mostly clean on the whole walk.
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| This walk is more hilly than it looks and it looks hilly. |
As we came out on the northern crest as the
river peels east the view appeared across the whole of the northern Wye Valley.
It was a clear day and the view was breath taking. Definitely worth the climb.
The rest of the walk was mostly small roads which were devoid of traffic. As we
got down the hill to Brockweir though the road got a bit busier. There is a pub
in Brockweir but we carried on past as it's January and we're saving money. We have been in before and it is very nice
but I believe it is under new management now.
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| An obstruction in the road. |
Overall a very nice walk and very hilly. It shows it’s always worth checking you haven’t quite covered every inch of the map. There are some great views, especially at this time of year when the trees are bare. There are so many interlocking paths up here you could walk around for several weeks and not go the same way twice. It's great little place to get lost in.
