Hiking adventures, close to home.
This was it. Some two years after I started officially walking the Severn Way, I was due to complete my personal journey from Bristol to Tewkesbury.
I left my car outside of the village hall in Apperley and set off walking in search of the River Severn.
It feels like only last week that I was writing about August, with thoughts of the summer waving goodbye for another year. October has arrived very suddenly. I’ve had quite a busy month, as you’ll see below.
For each of the two previous days spent walking around South Dorset, I’d looked on across the sea to the Isle of Portland. Curious. Anticipating this overdue opportunity to explore its coastline for myself.
I had everything planned for this walk a couple of years ago and I was able to drive to the Chesil Beach car park – alongside the causeway linking Portland with Weymouth and the mainland – without the need for GPS.
I’d awoken from my first night of camping to the scent of ‘sewage’ that seemed to be localised around my tent. I had absently pitched very-close-to a drain cover on the previous afternoon… With other campers likely to depart (fingers crossed) on this Sunday, I decided that I would attempt to move my tent after completing this walk.
I recently spent some time in Dorset, with three nights of camping and four days for walking around that. It was my first visit to the coastal part of the county since Easter 2016. When in Dorset, what else is one to do but walk another stretch of the South West Coast Path?
Six-days after the partial disappointment that came with my walk of Ysgyryd Fawr and Bryn Arw, I made my way back to the Black Mountains for a second crack at finalising a medium-level route for my walking group.
Since changing my job in June/July, I’ve developed a working rota that grants me every other Monday as a rest day, with no further questions asked. One one of these ‘happy Mondays’, I decided to make my way across the Severn Estuary and in to South Wales.
My goal was to climb ‘The Skirrid’ for the very first time and also try out a ten-to-eleven mile circular route that I’d sketched out in advance.
