5 Miles

0
miles walked since starting …

We’ve slept well in a four-poster bed in the iconic dwelling sitting on the sea wall beside, and part of, the West Usk lighthouse.  The owner, and as it turns out, builder of the wood clad building, welcomed us warmly last night.

We’ve worked out the best way to get back to Newport for todays walk is a taxi.  We decide not to ask him to drive the .7-mile pot-holed farmers track to the lighthouse so walk up (bizarrely, following the owner’s son in a Rolls Royce car) to the main road.  It’s a short drive and just £11.20 to take us to the car park of the Blaina Wharf inn, near to where we stopped yesterday.

The weather is not so kind today, so we shelter under their porch whilst setting the Coast Path app for the short stroll back to the lighthouse.

There’s one word to sum up Newport – “rubbish”.  I have never seen so much litter strewn along busy A roads, in ditches, alongside busy retail parks, on the edge of sports fields and behind residential gardens.  My eye is constantly drawn to the discarded Doritos packs, Dairylea Dunkers boxes and Durex wrappers as we weave along the “not so coastal” coast path.

We stop to admire the rather impressive but “not yet open”, Transporter Bridge Visitor Centre, cross the road to the “now open” Waterloo hotel and bar, along residential streets, retail parks, across Lime Kiln Bridge, through the underpass under Docks Way, across the Ebbw River to the outskirts of a housing estate where I find a stranded ship.  The first sign that this might actually be a coast path.  But well done to the Wales Coast Path peeps for all the signs along the way.

A muddy, litter strewn path runs opposite the massive site of the John Frost School.  I’m curious to know who John Frost was – turns out he was a former mayor of Newport, and a magistrate before he led the Newport Rising of 1839!  For which he was convicted for treason, sentenced to death, but later pardoned.

Back to the coast path which thankfully is now nearly back on the coast.  A short section of muddy path takes us to a well-maintained farmers track over the railway and down to the sea wall.  The driving rain forces us to stick to the land side of the sea wall, just heading up for the last section as we near the West Usk lighthouse.

It may only be 1pm but I think we’re done for the day. Time to dry off and then maybe a dip in the hot tub?