Distance - 4 Miles
Geocaches - 25
Heading down to the Wye Valley - a journey I've made every year since 2005 - I chicane through the timeless village of Trellech. Impressive church and pub opposite, where I am sure I notice the sky blue flash of the 2022 Good Beer Guide sticker proudly displayed on the front door.
Something to investigate post walk.
First the context. I like traditions to frame the year and in 2005, I did one of my first serious rambles from Tintern to Chepstow and back. I've followed it up with a visit every year, never repeating the same route. This year, I had planned to head to Eagle's Nest but when looking at the available geocaches, I spotted a new Geocache trail of Geoart mystery caches in Chepstow Park Wood. Solving the riddles gave me something to do in the quiet week before the festivities began in earnest.
On the warmest New Years Day ever, I head on down for a 15 degree walk. In stark contrast to the last time I was geocaching in this area in 2010. Ice flows coming down the Wye. Caches that needed digging out the snow.
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| Chepstow Park Wood - Entry |
The trail is completely contained within the woodland. A popular dog walking area and they are nosier than most. On dipping back from a hide, a woman shouts at me from some distance behind "what are you looking for?". She becomes that engrossed in my explanation of Geocaching that she loses one of her dogs. A chance for me to escape and continue my nefarious activities undisturbed.
Any other problems? My post Xmas belly has become too big for my always tight fitting softshell. The pen was squeezed out the pocket by about cache 5, meaning the rest of the finds had to be recorded by photo logs. I have 15 photos, mainly like this.
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| Finding Filmpots in the Woods |
The woodland provides a very decent and not too muddy ramble. Unusually, I find all the caches, resulting in some perfect geoart on my caching map. Many thanks to ChepstowRomans for a good day.
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| Geoaching - A inspiration source for a good walk |
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| Resulting in perfect Geoart - and a couple of outliers from 11 years ago |
To Trellech and the an investigation of the pub.
I pull into the car park, where a couple of families are getting booted and suited for their own ramble.
A couple of obligatory photos before rattling the door.
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| An unexpected first tick of the 2022? |
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| Its a solid looking Country Inn |
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| A Little Lion Decal on the Porch Roof |
Except the door doesn't open. I check with the families to ask if they know what the situation is. They say they are hoping to use the pub after their walk.
At least the pub are keeping social media up-to-date.
I don't have the heart to break the bad news to them. My first GBG tick of 2022 is going to the dubious ticks committee.
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| Looking at the time of the post, they must have seen the car park users |
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