Exploring :: The Wye Valley #3 ... The Forest of Dean

Hi there everyone 😀

Having managed to avoid the dreaded Covid for two and a half years Martin and I finally succumbed this week. We have felt pretty wiped out for the last 10 days, but are now slowly starting to get back to normal, though it doesn't seem to take much before we are feeling the need to rest. 

Our aim is to get back on top of everything that needs doing in the house and garden as soon as we can ... so that we can reward ourselves with a trip over to North Wales for some real chill out time at the lodge.

The blogging world is feeling a bit strange at the moment too, with lots of people who I have followed religiously for years either deciding to take a bit of a break or seeming to be posting more infrequently. I must admit that sometimes it does feel like a bit of an effort to put a post together, when there seems to be so many other priorities.  Hopefully I won't totally lose my blogging mojo, though I do feel a bit behind at the moment.

Today's post takes us back to July and our trip to the Wye Valley, where we'd spent our first weekend catching up with old work friends. They all headed for home on the Sunday and we decided that we'd have a day just mooching around locally, maybe have Sunday lunch, and just see how we went.

We started out at Lower Lydbrook, which wasn't far from where we were staying in Ruardean, and was a very popular spot for paddle boarding and picnicking by the river. It was a really lovely spot and though we didn't indulge in a paddle, there were plenty of people in the river ...

We pretty much followed the river to The Inn on The Wye, where we stopped for Sunday lunch ...

... before having a walk across Kerne Bridge, another good spot on the river, with some lovely views looking across to Goodrich Castle ...

We took a circuitous route back to the cottage deciding that we would have a bigger day out exploring further afield in The Forest of Dean the following day.

Our first stop on our next day's travels was The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail. Martin wasn't really up for walking far and to be fair it was so hot that neither of us was really up for much of a walk, but we both really wanted to see some sculpture.

We managed a short loop and got to see a few of the sculptures before deciding it was just too hot ...

We did manage an ice cream before deciding to head off. There was one sculpture that I really wanted to see but was just too far to walk. Looking on the map it seemed there may be the possibility of parking up fairly close so we decided to give it a go. We weren't disappointed ...

From here our next stop was the New Fancy View Point, which is on the site of the former New Fancy coal mine ...

The three elements of the sculpture depict stone, iron and coal. The coal being represented by the blackened Dean oak, the iron by pre-rusted fabricated steel and the stone by Forest of Dean bedrock.

It was a bit of a slog up to the viewpoint, but the view was worth it ... 

We were both starting to feel a bit peckish by now so decided to make our next stop Mallards' Pike, where we stopped for lunch in the sunshine ...

It was another really pretty spot, with plenty of walks and nice places to just sit and enjoy the sunshine.

As time was getting on we decided to call it a day and to head for home, with plans to head for Tintern Abbey, and maybe an outdoor lido, the following day 😀

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