Wednesday, May 20 – When I woke up this morning, my Google feed had a story about a forest in Gloucester being voted as one of the most beautiful places on earth. When we looked at a map, it was only about an hour from where we were staying. We decided to make an afternoon trip of it.
After Pam cooked us a delicious omelette breakfast, we decided to explore the area around our shepherds hut. A public footpath cut through the paddock immediately outside our door. A woman was exercising her 34 year old horse, Rebel, and we chatted with her for a bit. The next pasture had been mowed down the middle for the benefit of walkers. Not so with the next one, through which we had to walk through wet, knee-high grass, blackberries and nettles. By the time we reached the next field of high wheat, we decided it was time to abandon the footpaths and try walking the narrow country lanes. We walked up to the next village of Upper Cheney, then reversed course to finish a three-mile loop.
We got back to the hut, changed into dry clothes and headed for the Forest of Dean. To reach it, we had to drive across the River Severn, which landed us in Wales. We then turned northeast, crossed the River Wye and were back in England. We parked at a viewpoint for the Symonds Yat Rock, site of an acient hill fort. We took some photos of from the Rock and then took a steep trail down to the river below.
At rivers edge, there were several inns and we stopped at one for a drink. There was a “hand ferry” for crossing the river. We didn’t know what that meant, so we sat down and watched six hikers go across. They boarded and a ferryman launched the long, narrow craft which was attached to an overhead line by a rope with a loop. The ferryman would pull the boat toward the line, then flop the loop forward, slowing making the way across the river.
After the ferry show, we headed down a trail along the river following a retired railway line. After about a mile, we came to a suspension footbridge. We crossed over the bridge, had a picnic snack on the Wales side and then headed back.
When we got back to the car, we realized that if we were to drive straight back, we would get stuck in rush hour traffic around Bristol. So to kill time, we decided to have dinner in Chepstow, a town on the Welsh side of the River Severn. I randomly picked an eating place so that GPS would guide us into town. As we left the highway and descended into the old town, Pam exclaimed “there’s a Castle!” Sure enough, we had stumbled into the Chepstow Castle, which was first built in 1087 by one of WIlliam the Conqueror’s lieutenants.
We walked around the exterior of the massive castle, which had closed for the evening, and then had dinner at the George Hotel (established in 1620).
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