Forest of Dean (when is a holiday a holiday?)

After a brief sojourn in the north west we travelled back down south to stay in Reading for a few days.  With three of our daughters living in the town we had plenty of family time over our stay there including catching up with developments on our forthcoming grandson who is kindly being provided by Lauren & Lewis 😊

Unfortunately, I had a day indoors suffering from a bout of food poisoning and poor Lauren had the same issue.  We had had a pub meal on our way back from a trip to Oxford and Lauren and I had both eaten something dodgy; Karen & Lewis escaped though.  Whilst I was laid up, Karen took Buddy for a walk along the Kennet & Avon canal that runs through Reading and was reminded of an unfortunate incident that occurred to us on one of our many trips through the town on our old boat.

The lock & weir by the Oracle centre looking rather benign last week

We had been stuck outside Reading for a couple of months during the wet winter of 2012/13 due to the high water levels.  When the levels were deemed safe enough the locks were opened, and we were the first boat to head through Reading and onto the Thames for nearly three months.  We soon realised that the river had been opened too early and when we reached the weir in the picture above, our back end was pulled towards it and the front became stuck over the lock entrance.  As luck would have it, a group of firemen were having diving lessons in the weir and, after taking our lines, they had enough manpower to pull us off the weir and into the lock.  Click here for a link to the blog entry for that day.

After our stay in Reading we went off for four nights in the Forest of Dean.  People with similar lifestyles to ours often agree that they no longer know when they are on holiday; for us, popping to the Forest of Dean was going to be a mini-break not a holiday.  For those of you who don’t know the Forest of Dean, it was once occupied by collieries, iron and wire works, mills and quarries.  As you can imagine, tens of thousands of people were employed in these industries and, although most signs of the industries have long gone, the tiny workers’ dwelling houses abound, whether along the valley floors or perched precariously on the hillsides.

Nowadays, as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it is a tourist area popular with walkers and the hillsides have been taken over by the Forestry Commission with the rides through the woods left open for public access.  The beautiful River Wye, that forms a large part of the border between England and Wales, runs through the area and the villages and towns on its course are also popular tourist spots.  Barges used to be towed along the river to convey goods down to the River Severn and boats were built at several places along the route.  Neither of us knew that, at 134 miles, the River Wye is the fifth longest river in the UK. 

Many railways and tramways were constructed to transport produce away from the area.  These were removed long ago but have left ‘green’ lanes offering pretty walks for the public.  They also offer easier walks for the older or infirmed compared with many of the woodland rides on the steep hills.  Talking of steep tracks, the cottage we had rented was at the end of one of these tracks and when we were looking for it, we arrived at a junction where the road split and both ways looked too steep for cars to use.

Steeper than it looks - our cottage was up the left track

The morning view up the Lydd Brook valley from our bed

On one of our many walks we were reminded of our walnutting friends we had left behind in Châlons.  Once the walnut season had finished in France, the sweet chestnut season began, and Nikki challenged us all to find the first sweet chestnuts. From that day, until we left France just over a week ago, we couldn’t find a single sweet chestnut tree and came to the conclusion that they don’t grow near water.  Our first walk after arriving in the Forest was through a sweet chestnut wood with the ground covered in the distinctively shaped leaves and old chestnut cases!

Sweet chestnut leaves in a wood in the Forest of Dean

On Saturday we visited Ross-on-Wye, a town neither of us had ever been to before.  It was a pleasant place with many independent shops on the high street and it was good to only see a couple of places that were closed for business – probably a result of year-round tourism.

Top end of the high street

We had parked down by the River Wye to give Buddy a walk before and after visiting the town.  The river was quite high from the recent rain and carrying a lot of flotsam and jetsam.

Walking along the river with Ross-on-Wye ahead of us

Coincidentally we were both asked to take pictures of groups of people.  We joked that it was because we were being recognised from our recent (and only ever) appearance on a YouTube film 😉

Karen doing the honours in front of the market hall

I got my turn when we popped into a pub for some refreshment

The beauty of having a dog is that we can avoid actually shopping although we did pop into an antique shop to buy some earrings for Karen and a footstool.  Karen has now given herself a Christmas project to re-cover the footstool before we take it back to the boat.

After we had looked at all the buildings in the shopping streets, we wandered a bit further afield to do some VR boxing as there were some likely looking areas of Victorian villas.  We were rewarded with a couple of boxes, including a pillar that over the years had become shorter as the road and pavement were re-laid and raised around it.

Even a shorty like me could lean on it

People have asked what we find different between France and the UK.  Clearly there are many things as would be expected between different cultures and countries but two things struck us immediately: not acknowledging every person we walk past and being constantly aware of the volume of traffic on the roads. 

Before we finish our mini-break, we will probably pay Symonds Yat a visit and find a walk or two further to the north of the Forest.