Important Info

Planned kilometres: 25 (cummulative 440)

Kilometres walked: 21 (cummulative 469)

% Completed (based on 1800km trip): 26.1%

Weather: Sunny

Pubs visited: Berkeley Arms, Boars Head, JoJo Wine Bar

Pints: 9 (cummulative 54)

Kms per pint: 8.7

Blisters: 0 (cummulative 2)

 

Aust to Berkeley

First up today required catching a bus back to Aust to start my walk North again. I was late leaving the guesthouse and had to rush to get to the bus and they were only hourly. The rushing through the city paid off as I just got to the bus station and as soon as I got on the bus it left with me as the only passenger. More people got on the bus at the first stop including a poor man who got off where I did as Aust as he had caught the bus the wrong direction and wanted to go to Bristol not away from it.

 

My route today was to follow the Severn Way which is a pathway along the banks of the River Severn. The start of my walk was deserted, and I didn’t see another person for the first 2 hours, but then I started meeting people walking their dogs.

 

The walk was very quiet, and it was a good chance for me to put my headphones in and walk along singing as there was no one to hear me (or to get scared by my singing).

 

There wasn’t a lot to see walking along to River and the main two sites of the day were both nuclear power plants. The first one I had to walk partially through and then along the perimeter and the second was were I turned off the river to Berkeley.

 

The river is very tidal and as per sign below the tide and river rises very rapidly. A couple of locals told me that surfers come to the river to surf when there is a super tidal bore. I googled and found out that the River Severn has the third largest tidal range in the world and saw videos of people surfing along the crest of the tide.

 

The trip was quicker than planned and I arrived at the town of Berkeley just after 2pm and check in to my hotel wasn’t until after 5pm. I stopped at the first pub (Boars Head) and asked about food to be told that only the Berkeley Arms did food until 2:30 and was told I would need to rush there as it was all the way through town. All the way through town meant going another 75 metres and there was the Berkeley Arms. I got there just as they were finishing lunch, but Rachel (Bar lady) got the chef to make me lunch, so I settled down to lunch and a couple of beers.

My couple of beers ended up being four and I even got to go behind the bar (but prefer the customer side). A few locals came in and after they found out what I was doing, Neil, seen on the other side of the bar brought me a pint (Cheers Neil). The locals were talking about a ten-mile charity walk that many of the town were doing this weekend. They asked one of the local builders if he was doing it and his response was “Bollocks, like f*ck I will”. Rachel had a good excuse not to do the walk as was going on holiday the next morning but wanted to get a promotion in for the local charity fund raising. After a few beers I left the pub and checked into my hotel.

 

As there were only three pubs in town I decided that I may as well visit them all, so after checking in I went to the Boars Head for a beer and then to JoJo Wine Bar. Jo the owner was behind the bar and we had a great chat and she introduced me to all the locals that came in and made sure they knew about the walk I was doing.

I had a great night at JoJo thanks to Jo and the locals, but not sure I needed the 3 shots in addition to beers but slept well when I got back to my hotel.