Offa’s Dyke day 13: Monmouth to Chepstow

An account of walking the 177 mile long-distance trekking route between Prestatyn and Chepstow, along the Welsh-English border, in 12 walking days.

Day 12 of this walk can be found here.

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In unexpectedly sunny weather, we set of out of Monmouth, across the Wye and, you guessed it, up a hill! We went up the longest hill of the day to the National Trust properties at Kymin. There’s a viewpoint with a great panorama of Monmouth and an interesting and unusual temple celebrating Britain’s naval victories; miles from the sea.

We walked up and down a few hills until the path split. We were given the choice of walking over more hills or following the river Wye. As we hadn’t done much in the way of river walks, we followed the river and it was delightful. We stopped on the bank, in the shade of a big tree for lunch and Steve saw a otter! Lunch probably deserves a mention too; after days of cheese, ham or tuna sandwiches, M&S food hall in Monmouth gave us an overwhelming choice!

Eventually we made our way back into the higher path, in order to see the Devil’s Pulpit and a wonderful view of Tintern Abbey form there, and a point slightly closer to Chepstow. Those woods were lovely to walk through, with bouncy leaf-mould underfoot.

The last few miles towards Chepstow were frustrating, as we zig-zagged across a busy road, frequently with no pavement. We were buzzed by a Chinook helicopter, obviously on low level manoeuvres, which was quite a sight.

Skirting Chepstow and not crossing the bridge into the town, we made our way through Sedbury and Beachley. Refusing to be put off by unexpected closures of the trail (which had been a feature all day), we made it to the final field where, to Damian’s dismay, someone had placed a bull. Luckily, the bull was fast asleep in the middle of the field and ignored us, as did the Oreo cows (Damian’s children’s name for Belted Galloway cattle).

There was an unwanted down and up again, but finally we made it to the end of the path, marked by a stone (or a funny loaf of bread thing, according to Damian’s Mum on video phone)!

We were running about two hours behind our expected arrival time, having walked over twenty miles in the day and were very grateful to be picked up by Ian in the car. I had phoned to ask him to collect us, as he was going to be meeting us for dinner and he used Find my Friends to track me. Aren’t stalker apps great!

We had a very nice meal and some beers in The Lime Tree, in Chepstow to celebrate. 191 miles in 12 days. Not to be sneezed at! What’s next? Maybe something flat; in Norfolk perhaps!