Newport Wetlands to Duffryn

Today the plan was to complete part of a leg of the walk left from a previous weekend – we could not have walked any further on either our Cardiff to Newport leg, or on the 1.5 legs of Caldicot to Wetlands – so this shorter day joins up the two bits.

And what a plan we had – Leave Sharon’s car at Duffryn, Andrew then drives us both to the wetlands and parks – we walk back to Sharon’s car and then Sharon drives back to Andrew’s car – what could possibly go wrong??!! More on that later.

So at the wetlands we had to get back to the white lighthouse to resume our walk, which was 0.5 miles of walk which wasn’t on the coastal path and then off we went, following the large circluar dog walk through the wetlands.

The walk heads towards the power-station, and then ends up back through wetlands car park (2 miles done and back to the car lol), and then off across fields and through marshland.

This part of the walk felt more like a farm walk than a coastal path walk – through field after field after field, each with a bridge and double gate – which really slowed down the pace.

A little past Nash Church we hit the by now typical “footpath closed” snag:

But this time we were able to climb along the outside of the bridge quite easily as there was no gap to jump across. Suddenly the coastal path joins bike route 4, and becomes much smoother for a mile.

At this point (and I don’t know why) I decided to check Sharon had her car keys ready for the end of the walk. Quite calmly Sharon said that she had left them hidden from view – in my car!! It took about 5 minutes for Sharon to convince me that she wasn’t joking and was really that “special”, but eventually I was convinced and phoned Mum’s taxis to be at the end of the route to drive us back to Wetlands.

The next part of the walk went quite industrial, walking on a narrow path on the edge of the river Usk, until you reach the Newport Transporter bridge. We decided to cross using the bridge (the roast lamb was in the oven after all!!):

Then a short walk along the SDR and turn down towards Pill and the YMCA, then pass by Argos, through a tunnel and there is the car (minus keys):

Luckily, next to the car was mum to drive us back to the Wetlands.

So a total of 7.2 miles walked in 2 hours and 1 minute, 6.7 miles on the coastal path, making the total 99.4 miles walked, and 770.6 miles to go. And we have now walked the entire section from Chepstow to Barry!!!