Lower Lydbrook to Ross-on-Wye.  Another 10 miles of Wye Valley Walk, made possible once again by mum's taxis (thanks mum!)

Started off by crossing the river, over the old railway bridge - which I am much more used to seeing from river level, complete with "canoes keep left.  no stopping! no landing!" etc scribbled on the pillars.

The first few miles follows the riverside, past Welsh Bicknor church/youth hostel, and through fields.  Loads of people out enjoying the river in canoes and kayaks (and I think I spotted some rafty things?).  Quite a few other walkers around too.

Eventually, I reached Kerne Bridge.  Took a very minor detour to the picnic area to have my lunch, where the table/benches had been completely taken over by two people who weren't even sat down eating... reckon they must have been waiting for friends/family to get off the river for a massive lunch or something.  So I made do with perching on the wall instead.

From Kerne Bridge, the path heads away from the river, and up a small hill. Then down the other side, along for a bit, up another bit, and again down, where the path meets a road (near Coughton, apparently).

Here we turn right and walk a section of permissive path past a farm and eventually up the particularly steep wooded slope of Chase Hill.  An extra workout for my calf muscles, ouch!

Heading down the other side of the hill was almost as steep... good thing I had my trusty walking pole to take a bit of the strain off my knees. (as a side note, I'm definitely a convert to walking with poles now)

As I reached the outskirts of Ross, WVW signposts started to become a little scarce..  What I've learned so far from walking through the more urban areas is that you really have to keep your eyes peeled for the marker signs - they tend to appear higher up on street signs and lampposts.

Eventually I found myself hitting a dead end down the side of some tennis courts, as that's where I thought the sign pointed.  Obviously not!

Couldn't really figure it out from my OS map (green lines everywhere, argh), so I thought 'sod it' and decided to rely on my sense of direction to get me back to the car.  Which worked perfectly   (and, you know, I'm relatively familiar with Ross-on-Wye town centre anyway...).  Of course, when I properly consulted some maps at home afterwards it was ridiculously obvious where I should have walked, but hey ho!

tags: walking wye