Day: 054
Date: Sunday, 24 July 2022
Start: Chepstow
Finish: Easton in Gordano
Daily Kilometres: 33
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1489
Weather: Mild, overcast and drizzling early, but gradually warming and clearing with sunny spells.
Accommodation: Hotel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Cereal/Muesli, toast & jam
Lunch: Egg & cress sandwich/Coronation chicken sandwich
Dinner: Kentucky Fried Chicken & chips, Krispy Kreme donuts
Aches: Dave - a few niggles. Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Crossing the Severn River estuary and turning towards Land’s End and the end of our journey. We feel like we are in the final stretch, not desperate to finish but savouring what we have experienced.
Lowlight: None really.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We were a little bit later leaving than planned because Dave forgot to set the alarm but were walking by 7:30am after making good use of the continental breakfast in the heavily-postered hostel kitchen, For the first five kilometres, we were retracing our steps of yesterday to the turnaround point of the Severn Bridge Parkrun in overcast conditions with a persistent light drizzle. It was also quite windy on the bridge, so not that pleasant, and we discussed how miserable it must get for the parkrunners sometimes in winter.
After descending on the bridge to the English side, we scrambled up a steep dirt bank unofficial shortcut to the Motorway service station where we bought a snack and drink for morning break. The next few hours were mostly quite uninteresting walking, following supposed field paths across rough fields, some almost wasteland, on the flat river floodplain. Not very inspiring on a grey day.
However, after our morning break at 11:00am, the scenery and paths improved, though we did make a few navigational errors. We passed through some pretty villages and climbed onto a low ridge that allowed us to see more of the surrounding country, which turned out to contain a lot of industry, villages, and office parks. This was not surprising because our route for the day was skirting the city of Bristol and passing through some of its suburbs.
In one of those suburbs, Henbury, we found a grocery to buy some lunch and then carried it up to the beautiful and vast Blaise Castle Estate park via Blaise Hamlet, a picturesque group of 200-year-old cottages set around a little green. At the park, on what had become a sunny afternoon, lots of people were out enjoying themselves. We found a bench from which to survey the scene while eating lunch. Nearby, under a small marquee, there seemed to be some kind of evangelical gathering of south Asians being entertained by a young guy who was a good talker. Of course, we couldn’t understand a word he was saying …. so probably completely misconstrued what was happening.
After lunch, we visited the less-than-impressive Blaise Castle, a folly (sham) castle built 200 years ago by the then-estate owner, before following paths, mostly through pleasant woodland on this greenbelt through the urban area, to Avonmouth and the huge bridge across the River Avon. The bridge, which primarily carried the busy M5 Motorway, had a shared path which we used to cross the river. It was very noisy and windy, but we got some great views.
From there, we travelled a few more kilometres along a bike path and backroads until we returned to the Motorway and a service area where we had booked our hotel room, arriving at 4:15pm. I suspect they rarely have guests arriving on foot!
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