Chepstow

The minibus was collected on Wednesday which made Day 1 start much easier.  Carol drove the bus to Pat and Steve's where we all met at about 8.30.  All loaded and off we went - ooops - got as far as Golflinks Road and Jacqui called out that she had forgotten her coat!!  So we did a loop around the roads to Jacqui's house to collect the coat, just as well that she remembered  Ok, off again, filling up with fuel at Sainsburys.  We will be a group of 15, but 2 of our group are joining later, Kim is flying in from France and George is picking her up from Hereford, and Tim B is coming much later after finishing work in Jersey.

So our group is - Tim S (chief map reader); Carol (chief bus driver); Jackie (photographer on walks) and Tim B; Pat (co. food order-er) and Steve W (kitty keeper); Me - Alison (blogger and co food orderer)and Steve Y (chief accommodation finder); George and Kim L (French speakers when required); Helen (chief porcelain toilet finder) and Walter (Mr. Pieman); Alan (Head chef?); Lyn S (carrier of the ruck sac with everything in it)

Our first stop was just outside Bath for coffee / tea and a dinner plate sized tea cake.  On we went to Chepstow where Carol dropped us off to find the start of the walk.  We had to walk down to the beach to find the path; well we got down to the sea, but couldn't find the path.  We walked along a bit, but decided that we must have missed it, so turned around and went back to  where we had joined the beach, and there was the path!  A good start; but at least it was dry but that wasn’t to last the rain soon started, so coats went on and we tramped through quite a bit of mud.

We just walked about 3 miles to get the urban part of the walk out of the way, and to stretch our legs on the way to Hay-on-Wye.

We got back to the bus and drove onto our rather fabulous houses in Hay.  We’ve got 3 town houses next to each other, and we have just had fish and chips, so all is well - except this blog has taken ages as the wifi keeps cutting out :(