Wye Valley Walk 2019 Day 5

Sunday the 28^th of July 2019

Today would be my last day on the Wye Valley.  I had originally planned on doing it all, but found the costs of overnight stays, and getting my larger pack transported, beyond Hereford was financially prohibitive.

Although it has only been about 6 months since I did this walk as I write this out, I have little recollection of this day, and my diary entry essentially says “good, but long” whatever that meant.  The day began with road walking, at first back to where the bus had dropped me the day before, and then along the road the bus had taken coming down from Ross-on-Wye.  You may be asking yourself, or me, why I just didn’t catch the bus back.  I would have, had I not created an itinerary that put me here on a Sunday, when the buses don’t run.  I did not walk entirely on the road, which was good as there was a section that was very narrow with cars at high speeds that I managed to avoid, but that was only for a short time.

Photos are a good recollection of things that happened, and areas visited, and even without looking back at them, I am recalling leaving Ross to follow the river before heading away from it and through farmland with tall, thick grass and weeds.  I was becoming clear to me that the Wye Valley Walk was not traversed by many people.  I recall returning to the river for a while, then heading off again through more farmland (and not seeing the river again after that point).  So, against form, I'll let the photos tell the story for a bit.

From the outskirts of Hereford to my accommodation for the night was a long section of residential boringland.  After checking in, I found my bearings (i.e. where the railway station was, for my morning departure) and then went off for dinner.  Do you want to have a guess at what establishment I ate?  I’ll give you a clue: 6 days in a row.

I know I've actually only walked 3 days on the Wye Valley Walk, and there are probably another 5 days walk beyond Hereford.  Usually I commit to doing the entire walk, and the ones I did not complete, planned to later go and finish, but I did not find the Wye Valley interesting enough to return, even though I have been told the sections further upriver are the best.  As mentioned herein, I did originally intend on walking the entire trail, but the costs of doing so changed my plans.  If I return to do more walking in the U.K. in the future, I have many more trails I want to do before I would return to do the parts of this one that I did not get to.