* Next day
Last summer I walked down the Wye, arriving at its confluence with the Severn soaked to the skin and doubting whether our climate was compatible with the concept of a long walk. But I thought I'd give it another go, and nine months later got off the train one bright mid-morning at Chepstow station with a vague plan to meet some friends near Bristol that evening.
What we refer to as the First Severn Bridge is actually two bridges: to the west there's one over the Wye, and then after a half-mile a longer, higher one over the Severn. They both opened in 1966 to carry the new M4. Up until then the only way of getting your car across the Severn without the sixty mile return drive to Gloucester was by committing your vehicle, and life, to the notoriously perilous Aust-Beachley Ferry, which closed the day before the bridge opened.
With a span of only 235 meters the Wye Bridge hadn't promised to be anything unusual but it quivered and wobbled in a very unsettling way, to the extent that I found it difficult to sustain my normal stride rhythm. It lands at Beachley army camp, and soon turns into the Severn Bridge. This is a lot bigger. Its 988 meter span was the longest in the UK until the Humber Bridge (1410 meters) opened in 1981. It doesn't bounce either, or not when I was on it.
At Aust, on the English side, there's a scruffy service area. It was sad to see it because in its heyday in the 70s and 80s it was a busy place, popular not only with passing motorists but also as a day-trip location for folk from the Welsh Valleys. 
Unusually it had huge windows with a panoramic view of the bridge and a big, clean picnic area. The operators hadn't yet realised that what was really needed were four co-located Costa outlets, two Burger Kings thirty paces apart and a place to buy covers for your mobile phone.
For once I was approaching England at less than 70mph, so I could finally have a good look at Aust cliffs. The shoreline is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, famous for sedimentary beds of red and green mudstone, topped with shale containing fossilised insects and pterosaurs.
But more recent history was on my mind too. On 11 May 1966, just two days into the UK leg of his European tour and fresh from being booed off stage at his previous night's gig at Colston Hall in Bristol, Bob Dylan crossed to Wales on the Aust ferry and was photographed waiting at the ferry terminal by the renowned rock photographer Barry Feinstein. 
You'd have thought he'd have been thrilled at the prospect of visiting Wales but he looks to be in a right old mood. In the background you can see the bridge, which was yet to open. Wikipedia says that the version of the photo on the "No Direction Home" LP had a digitally altered registration number on the car, which seems a bit unlikely as the same source says that digital image manipulation wasn't invented until the 1980s.
And just in case you haven't heard enough about the bridge yet, in the film Star Wars (1977), the sounds of the lasers were made by striking one of the suspension wires of the Severn Bridge. A long one was used for the ships and a shorter ones for the hand-guns. And of course on 1 Feb 1995 Richey Edwards, the lyricist and guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, took the same walk as me but alas only did half of it.
The walk along the shore down to the new bridge known as the Second Severn Crossing, or SSC, was three miles of pleasant springy marsh grass. Under the new bridge I had a nice chat with a lady whose claim to fame was that her dog had starred in Casualty and been paid in sausages. Maybe he negotiated his own contract.
I'd been tipped off that Avonmouth might not turn out to be the pretty estuary fishing village I'd been hoping for. As tips go, it was a good one. Avonmouth Docks is a vast area through which much of the country's fresh produce is imported. On the other side of the Avon, Royal Portbury Dock was constructed more recently and is a big hub for the import and distribution of cars. But there wasn't evidence of activity anywhere. For miles I walked along straight roads bordered by chemical factories, warehouses and industrial buildings, most of them closed. The huge wind turbines ahead seemed the only things to be working.
Fortunately Pete arrived and he and his wife Denise kindly put me up for the night, after a few beers. Well, I say a few. I hadn't seen Pete for a while, and he hadn't been to his local for a while, and he bumped into another friend he hadn't seen for a while, and - well you know how it goes.
-- RodBird - 01 Jan 2011
Chepstow to Avonmouth
Day 1 : 1 July 2010
Last summer I walked down the Wye, arriving at its confluence with the Severn soaked to the skin and doubting whether our climate was compatible with the concept of a long walk. But I thought I'd give it another go, and nine months later got off the train one bright mid-morning at Chepstow station with a vague plan to meet some friends near Bristol that evening.
What we refer to as the First Severn Bridge is actually two bridges: to the west there's one over the Wye, and then after a half-mile a longer, higher one over the Severn. They both opened in 1966 to carry the new M4. Up until then the only way of getting your car across the Severn without the sixty mile return drive to Gloucester was by committing your vehicle, and life, to the notoriously perilous Aust-Beachley Ferry, which closed the day before the bridge opened.
With a span of only 235 meters the Wye Bridge hadn't promised to be anything unusual but it quivered and wobbled in a very unsettling way, to the extent that I found it difficult to sustain my normal stride rhythm. It lands at Beachley army camp, and soon turns into the Severn Bridge. This is a lot bigger. Its 988 meter span was the longest in the UK until the Humber Bridge (1410 meters) opened in 1981. It doesn't bounce either, or not when I was on it.
At Aust, on the English side, there's a scruffy service area. It was sad to see it because in its heyday in the 70s and 80s it was a busy place, popular not only with passing motorists but also as a day-trip location for folk from the Welsh Valleys. 
Unusually it had huge windows with a panoramic view of the bridge and a big, clean picnic area. The operators hadn't yet realised that what was really needed were four co-located Costa outlets, two Burger Kings thirty paces apart and a place to buy covers for your mobile phone.
For once I was approaching England at less than 70mph, so I could finally have a good look at Aust cliffs. The shoreline is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, famous for sedimentary beds of red and green mudstone, topped with shale containing fossilised insects and pterosaurs.
But more recent history was on my mind too. On 11 May 1966, just two days into the UK leg of his European tour and fresh from being booed off stage at his previous night's gig at Colston Hall in Bristol, Bob Dylan crossed to Wales on the Aust ferry and was photographed waiting at the ferry terminal by the renowned rock photographer Barry Feinstein.
You'd have thought he'd have been thrilled at the prospect of visiting Wales but he looks to be in a right old mood. In the background you can see the bridge, which was yet to open. Wikipedia says that the version of the photo on the "No Direction Home" LP had a digitally altered registration number on the car, which seems a bit unlikely as the same source says that digital image manipulation wasn't invented until the 1980s.
And just in case you haven't heard enough about the bridge yet, in the film Star Wars (1977), the sounds of the lasers were made by striking one of the suspension wires of the Severn Bridge. A long one was used for the ships and a shorter ones for the hand-guns. And of course on 1 Feb 1995 Richey Edwards, the lyricist and guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, took the same walk as me but alas only did half of it.
The walk along the shore down to the new bridge known as the Second Severn Crossing, or SSC, was three miles of pleasant springy marsh grass. Under the new bridge I had a nice chat with a lady whose claim to fame was that her dog had starred in Casualty and been paid in sausages. Maybe he negotiated his own contract.
I'd been tipped off that Avonmouth might not turn out to be the pretty estuary fishing village I'd been hoping for. As tips go, it was a good one. Avonmouth Docks is a vast area through which much of the country's fresh produce is imported. On the other side of the Avon, Royal Portbury Dock was constructed more recently and is a big hub for the import and distribution of cars. But there wasn't evidence of activity anywhere. For miles I walked along straight roads bordered by chemical factories, warehouses and industrial buildings, most of them closed. The huge wind turbines ahead seemed the only things to be working.
Fortunately Pete arrived and he and his wife Denise kindly put me up for the night, after a few beers. Well, I say a few. I hadn't seen Pete for a while, and he hadn't been to his local for a while, and he bumped into another friend he hadn't seen for a while, and - well you know how it goes.
-- RodBird - 01 Jan 2011 Topic revision: r2 - 01 Jan 2011 - 20:16:42 - RodBird
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