Day 10: Clytha to Gilwern

Last night’s barbecue in the pub garden was delicious, though the locals seemed a bit bemused (we would have eaten in, but no food served Sunday evening so we had to improvise). A full Welsh breakfast this morning included laverbread (seaweed) and cockles, which I’m not convinced is better than the English experience, but definitely better than the full American with beans and hash browns – yuck.

Having said goodbye to Charles and Zoe, and settled their bar bill, we headed for the river to pick up the Usk Valley Walk, which will take us to Brecon. It was a peaceful morning, partly cloudy with the headwind catching us at times, swallows skimming across the fast-flowing river, a couple of herons. The path was generally good with only a few bramble tripwires, lethal nettles and one field of stampeding cattle to contend with. But we’re getting used to all that.

A hiatus at lunchtime where we had to cross the Usk on an extremely narrow bridge shared with a very busy A road, which was not nice. Immediately afterwards I caught my leg on a fallen branch and ripped my shin. Ian was already feeling under the weather but he recovered enough to buy me some chocolate and we found a bench in a quiet churchyard to eat our sandwiches and apply a plaster.

Then the path went straight up to the 110m contour line and stayed there for the rest of the day, on the towpath of the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal halfway up the hillside. Deserted at first, punctuated by little bridges leading nowhere, but gradually getting busier as we skirted above Abergavenny.

We are now in Gilwern, which I was worried about as we drove past a couple of weeks ago and it is a tangle of A roads and roadworks, but the canal keeps to its own place and pace and brought us to the heart of the village and the friendly Beaufort Arms.

12.6 miles, and we have walked further than the planned remaining mileage, but I hesitate to say we are halfway as the estimates have been consistently low.