Friday 2 September 2016

Day 10. Bridgnorth to Bewdley.

Wednesday 31 August

Hopefully the photographs will be added to these blogs in Worcester.

We stayed at Bassa Villa in Bridgnorth, a grade 2 listed pub, overlooking Sabrina. We also ate our evening meal and early breakfast there (7:45am). We decided not to breakfast in the upper town of Bridgnorth as we found yesterday evening that the walk up and down would be too much before our 26km walk today.

Upper town had some beautiful old buildings but we forgot the camera. Perhaps another visit.

We also decided if we had another knot weed fiasco today we would give up the walk beside the Severn.

We left Bassa Villa just after 9am on a beautiful sunny morning.The fine weather lasted all day. We photographed the bridge and then went off down the path to start fighting the vegetation, or so we thought. After the overgrown entries to Cressage and Ironbridge we were prepared for the worst. The worst never eventuated. There was some bad knot behind some expensive houses as we were leaving town, with some brambles at face height, but there was no blockage of foot movement! Surprisingly the path was generally good all the way to Bewdley. It was about what you would expect for a major country walk.

The stress levels gradually fell as the path remained clear. There was what appeared to us to be some deliberate blocking of signage marking the entance to the Severn Way, particularly near housing. In the countryside marking was pretty good.

As a result we've just collected a group of photographs for you to peruse at your leisure. There are even photographs of flowers, including  knot weed.

A lot of the better track condition could be thanks to a group of anglers from Birmingham, see attached photograph. They had been cutting the weeds along the riverbank. Thank you gentlemen. You will also see a photograph of an angler who caught a roach just as we were passing. As soon as I had photographed it he released it back into the Severn and it swam off. We also saw a couple of guys fishing on a shallow island in the river whilst two women watched them from the bank.

Miracle of miracles we also met people doing short day walks. It proves the paths are used when they are passable.

Most of the photos are self explanatory. The Trimpley reservoir is above the path and located about 7km before Bewdley.

We stopped for a shandy at the Unicorn Inn, Hampton and  cream teas at Upper  Arley.

The path became more tricky to follow near Bewdley and we found our OS maps were out of date. The Way had been re routed in quite a few places to the benefit of housing but with a loss to walkers. I fear this may be being planned near the entrance to Ironbridge.

A long day, and a similar one tomorrow but then we have a day of and shorter day walks.

No comments:

Post a Comment