Forest of Dean Part 2

Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Symonds Yat, England, United Kingdom
In Wales, the traffic signs are written in Welsh and English; sometimes the Welsh is on the top and sometimes the English is. A sign that has 3 towns on it might have Welsh and English alternately - or 3 Welsh followed by 3 English - or vice versa. Imagine deciding which direction to go when faced with something like this - Llandovery (English), Llanymddyfri (Welsh), Swansea, Abertawe, Abergavenny, Y Fenni. Most of the roads have numbers, like A4067, but they don't use them on the signs. But we made it!

We drove north across the Brecon Beacons to Brecon, passing the Cray Reservoir where Bryan took the photo of the artificial rabbit warrens . (They are the diagonal mounds on the hill - and were put in after WW2 when there was a food shortage.) The Brecon Beacons are a mountain range made of old red sandstone, and are said to be named after the ancient practice of lighting signal fires on mountains to warn of attacks by invaders.

We'd met a fellow at The Worm's Head who owned a pub in Abergavenny and I wrote down the name "just in case". As we drove through the town, we passed a cute little pub with a beer garden right on the river - I found the scrap of paper and yes it was his pub, The Bridge Inn. We didn't go back and go in though. We stopped off to take a peek at Raglan Castle before crossing back over the border near Monmouth - a bit of history for you now! "At the outbreak of the Civil War, Raglan was garrisoned for the king. Henry, the new earl, and later marquess of Worcester, poured his fortune into the royal cause. By 1646 the castle was under siege, one of the longest of the Civil War. It was pounded by heavy artillery under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, and finally the elderly marquess was forced to surrender .The fall of Raglan virtually marked the end of the Civil War, and Cromwell's demolition engineers were soon at work reducing the great walls. However, the strength of the Great Tower was almost great enough to defy them. Only after 'tedious battering the top thereof with pickaxes', did they eventually undermine the walls and two of its six sides were brought crashing down in a mass of falling masonry."Back in the Forest of Dean again and heading north on the A40 towards Ross-on-Wye, when I saw a sign to Symonds Yat. 'Yat Rock is a popular location for climbers. Some of the climbs are
dangerous and have cost lives so climbs need to be planned carefully.'- so we just drove up the very narrow road to a car park, and then drove back down again! We'd done enough walking at Rhossili the day before anyway.

But Symonds Yat was fascinating, and we decided to spend the night there. We saw several groups of canoeists as well as the slidy places to launch the canoes. It's possible to canoe all the way from Hay on Wye (or Glasbury) to Monmouth (or Redbrook); plus there looked like there was some very adventurous bike riding (they wore knee pads) . That bit was for you Ken G - I hope you read it! Symonds Yat West is on the Herefordshire side of the river and Symonds Yat East is on the Gloucestershire side. The only connection between the two banks are two ancient hand ("pull") ferries by which the ferryman pulls people across the river using an overhead rope, for a small fee. The only connection by road is upstream over Huntsham bridge; this is a five mile trip. We stayed at The Wye Knot Hotel on the west side. It was a friendly local place - very crowded around 6pm as people called in for a drink as they took their dogs for a walk. And yes, the dogs were in the bar too!! We both had beef and ale pie for dinner. I also had some sticky ginger pudding for dessert - an enormous portion, but I managed it. Better go for a walk tomorrow! Oh - and check out the photo of the Australian wine on tap! It comes in a BIG cardboard cask.

We walked along the bank of the Wye, passed the two ferries - the one at The Ferry Inn wasn't working. We debated taking the ferry across to The Saracen's Head but carried on walking to 'the Biblins' (see photo). Walked across the suspension bridge and back; then back along the higher path and road, so we could read about the iron works. All up, just over 2 hours and it started raining as we got back to the car. After a bit of discussion we headed home to Essex.

After that, we spent a night with a friend in Stevenage - check out her car!! Plus we've been to an afternoon party - yay the sun was shining - and now we're getting ready for the train travel. :-)
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Comments

Ken
2013-05-28

Yep, I'm reading it all Anne. Maybe not in the right order though. Noted your mention of gliders and canoeing and extreme bike riding and climbing. Makes me envious. All those ways of hurting yourself in such a small area. lol

Ken
2013-05-28

And did you see a red dog running free?

anne.nathan
2013-05-29

I'm pleased to see you picked up on the gliders too Ken!

2025-02-10

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