Log No 241. Mon 10th Feb 2014 - Caldicot to Aust, 9 miles (3687 miles walked)

I only managed to lie in for half an hour, I decided it was better to have more free time after finishing the days walk.

It made a change to drive somewhere in the daylight and after paying to park the camper in Chepstow caught a bus to Caldicot.

Because of the transport links I was only going 9 miles to just get over the bridge otherwise I would need 3 buses today.

Leaving Caldicot at 10.10 I walked under the low railway bridge, there was just enough clearance at 5'9", and over the M4 to get back onto the embankment by the R Severn.

The weather was almost like spring with just a hint of the odd small shower and I walked under the M4 Severn Bridge to a picnic site near Portskewett where I sat on a bench in the warm sun to have a sandwich.

I continued on the embankment taking note of the signposts which said to follow the Red markers in case of high tide, the Severn Estuary has the 2nd highest tidal range on the planet of up to 12m.

At the first small river I came to the path headed inland through fields, by the church at Mathern then round by some industrial units to get to the access point for the M48 bridge over the river.

Traffic was light on the bridge, the newer M4 bridge must take most of the traffic now.

The bridge crosses both the River Wye and the River Severn with the Wye being boundary between Wales and England.

I only met one other person crossing the bridge but she kept her head down and didn't look at me, welcome to England!

At the end of the bridge I went to the bus stop on the interchange roundabout to wait for a bus to take me back to Chepstow to pick up the camper.

It was lucky I decided to walk anti-clockwise round the coast, the toll charges only applied to vehicles going into Wales.

Well that is the coast of Scotland and Wales completed now, I just have England to finish off.

I am not going to end up walking 6000 miles, the northwest coast of Scotland proving too inaccessible in places and I had to cut off about 350 miles.

The final mileage will probably end up nearer 5600 miles which means I only have 1913 to go and I have set a finishing date of 12th July.