Saturday 10 September 2016

Day 18. Berkeley to M48 Travelodge.

Friday 9 September.

We left our B&B at 9:30 am and took the footpath, south of Berkeley, back to the main road where we turned off the Severn Way yesterday. You can just see Shiel coming out of the gateway. The next picture, taken from the road, shows what we think are spherical mistletoe growths in an oak tree.

The road led to the now defunct Berkeley nuclear power station, shown in the next picture. We turned off here, on a hedge lined path with dangerous brambles at face height, back to the river. See photograph of Shiel going down the path.

The path led to the banks of the Severn where the next photograph shows the view to the far, western bank. With good resolution you would see a wind turbine, which was turning. It was a windy day, a head wind for us. The Sharpness turbine was still not rotating.

The next photograph was taken looking down the Severn. For a short way the stop bank was a concrete sea wall. The next photograph shows Phil, the first fisherman we've seen on the Severn since Sharpness. He said it was possible to catch flat fish and eels at present and cod in winter but he was still hoping to catch a bass.

There were lots of cows on the stop bank, see photograph, but they all moved off slowly as we approached. We also saw our first sailing boat today and a couple of houses on the stop bank that seemed to have been flood damaged. The house in the photo seemed to have an abandoned the lower floor.

We saw lots of signs warning of obvious dangers, see photograph, but none warning of dangerous overgrown paths or unstable stiles.

The next picture was taken looking south toward the Severn bridges, just before we reached the decommissioned Oldbury nuclear power plant where the next four photographs, which are self-explanatory, were taken.

South of the power plant we had to turn East, at a sailing club, to walk beside a small stream into Oldbury on Severn where we took refreshment at The Anchor.

We arrived at 2:15, a little later than expected, as we met Matt again. He is studying the flow of water in the Severn estuary. We also met him yesterday, before Berkeley, where he showed us how to open a farm gate, which appeared to be locked but wasn't. It had locks on it though.

After the pub we returned to the Severn via the south bank of the same stream. The view of the Severn bridges, shown next, was taken a little futher south.

Just before the M48 bridge the path headed inland, uphill, to the M48 services where the last 2 pictures were taken. We arrived just after  four pm having taken 6 1/2 hours to walk 19.9 km.

It was an enjoyable walking day, mainly overcast, with sun at times. We even had a few spots of rain but no need for wet weather gear. However at times we felt it would have been better with slightly less wind.

Tomorrow is our last day walking beside Sabrina. As we have things to arrange for our return to NZ we plan to finish the walk Severn Beach, the original end of the Severn Way. We've had enough of battling through overgrown paths in urban areas for this year.

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