1 to 3 March 2025 - Around St Briavels

                                                St Briavels Castle courtyard

This was supposed to be a Ramsoc weekend (Sue's old Nottingham University hiking club) in the Wye Valley at what used to be Welsh Bicknor Youth Hostel. We visited it in 2014 (see here) and many years before that I visited with my UMIST hiking club (TDHHC) when our misbehaviour led to the then warden's 'You are the leaders of tomorrow' speech.

Unfortunately the road to the Wye Valley hostel has been washed away, so the YHA kindly re-located us to St Briavels hostel, which is a rather ancient castle.

En route on 28 February I'd enjoyed two nice walks up Walton Hill and May Hill, and on 1 March ten of our contingent of 32 visited the Severn Bridge parkrun.

So this entry starts after we had driven from the Chatterbox Cafe after the parkrun to the car park at Beacon Ash, from where we walked back to St Briavels.

Note that my camera seems to have switched from the usual 4:3 format to 16:9. I didn't notice at the time. Some pictures may benefit, others will not have done. [ToDo: learn camera settings.]

There are lots of photos in this posting; click on any image for a better version and access to a slideshow. 

A woodland walk took us high above the Wye Valley, with views from the Devil's Pulpit down to Tintern Abbey.

Sue and Paul

Sue and Phil

Good paths led down and over a bridge to Tintern, where entry to the abbey was free of charge for the day as it was St David's Day.

We found various benches on which to enjoy lunch in the sun.

After lunch we wandered past St Michael's Church and enjoyed a riverside stroll before re-crossing the river and heading up quiet lanes and tracks to St Briavels.

Eventually we paused for a final tea break before enjoying more tea and cake back at the hostel.

Here's our route - 16km with 450 metres ascent, taking five and a half hours.

Later - great food at the hostel, thanks to several of those attending, including Sal's lovely sponge cake. It didn't last very long!

On Sunday 2 March, we admired the entrance to the castle, while 23 of our group of 32 readied themselves for a walk on which various folk fell by the wayside, so only 13 finished together.

The path led down from St Briavels, past a heron, to yesterday's bridge over the River Wye.

We crossed the bridge and took the Wye Valley Walk path through Coed Beddick woods to a good spot for lunch.

There were good views down the valley.

Our path took us through Bargain Wood, then Cuckoo Wood, to Llandogo and Bigsweir Bridge.

Then it was mainly uphill, with our depleted party of 13, back to the castle for more tea and cake.

Here's our route - 17km with 600 metres ascent, taking five and a half hours.

The evening was spent at the local pub, who produced a nice meal for the 25 of us who were staying a third night.

Monday morning, and a few photos from around the castle before we departed. Sue may provide some more images later.

There's a skeleton in the dungeon!

Some went home, and about 13 of us went to Kymin for another mainly woodland walk.

We started at a Naval Temple dating from 1800.

There were splendid views into Wales, with both the Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons clearly visible on yet another sunny day.

We reached a trig point at the top of Buck Stone, where I took some final pictures of the group before realising they were heading further away from Kymin, whereas I returned to my car so as to get home at a reasonable hour. (Sue was traveling separately so as to stay with her mother in Solihull.)

My paths could be described generically thus:

My route today was about 10km, with 350 metres ascent, taking three and a half hours.

If you've made it this far, you might be amused by these pictures of a previous visit to St Briavels castle, when I was with the UMIST (TDHHC) hiking club and a local paper wanted some photos. Ann Moseley, on the right and Pete Watson's girlfriend on the left, duly obliged. My notes refer to it being November 1969. It was in the days of miniskirts and short shorts!

Well, that was another splendid weekend.

Here are some more pictures provided by Sue.

Saturday 1 March 2025 - Severn Bridge parkrun

As we were staying nearby, it would have been inappropriate not to take part in a local parkrun. This one promised to be a bit different. We assembled in a huge underpass tunnel for the 250th running of this event.
 

The briefing turned out to be inaudible. Not to worry, we know the score. Except that in this case it wasn't clear where we started. Anyway we made our way up a long ramp, at the top of which I set my watch - nearly a minute behind the people who went through the start first. Never mind.

The mist slowly cleared as we ran over the bridge to a turnaround point.

On the return leg I met Carol and Melinda, who were walking, so as to conserve energy for the walk that followed.

After the run, Sue B kept warm by jogging out to join Carol and Melinda. They are pictured below descending the ramp up which we queued at the start. We made for quite a large welcoming party.

The finish is in the tunnel, where Keith has just cheered through the two walkers.

Someone kindly took this group photo before we all adjourned for breakfast in the Chatterbox Cafe.

The 5km route is shown below, the green blob being my interpretation of the start, and the red blob is the finish. (Click on the image for a better version - as always). The full results are here.

Here are our team's results. There's not much data for Melinda as she didn't have a bar code with her.

Here are a few more photos culled by Sue.

Friday 28 February 2025 - May Hill

For a second walk of the day, Sue and I stopped in May Hill Village and enjoyed a stroll up and down May Hill. A very pleasant clockwise circuit on a warm, sunny afternoon.

More woodland paths, similar in many ways to the ones we had enjoyed earlier in the Clent Hills.

Near or at the 296 metre summit, a trig point on the edge of a small wood.

Time for a coffee and cake break.

We continued over the crest of the hill and headed back down via some nice forestry paths in Newent Woods, eventually reaching the village hall where we should have parked - there was lots more room than in the muddy spot we chose a bit further down the hill.

There are lots of road/pathside flowers just now, mainly snowdrops and also lesser celendine and wood anemones. It's very spring like as we move into March.

Here's our route - 6km with 200 metres ascent, taking about a leisurely hour and a half.

Friday 28 February 2025 - Walton Hill

This was a little more than an hour's walk from a National Trust car park (Nimmings Wood) and cafe in the Clent Hills. Just a short break on a journey further south, a few minutes to the west of Juncion 3 on the M5.

I set off on an anticlockwise circuit and soon came across Phil and two Sues. By coincidence they were doing a similar walk in the opposite direction.

I left them to their snacks and continued on from the viewpoint that provides fine views over the Midlands. Albeit rather hazy views today.

A little further up the hill I encountered The Four Stones. These  may look ancient and mysterious, but they were actually created in the eighteenth century for Lord Lyttleton as a folly to be viewed by visitors from down in the valley. 

My 5km circuit followed undulating paths like the one in the next two pictures.

There's a trig point on the 315 metre summit of Walton Hill. I'm still not good at selfies.

A broad path led back to the car park, where Sue was waiting and a latte and a cheese toastie went down well before our journeys continued.

Here's my route - 5.6km with 200 metres ascent, taking little more than an hour.