Oh dear. I haven't updated this site for ages, though it certainly doesn't mean that I haven't been out walking. I'll try and do a few short entries over the next few days just so you can see what I've been up to.

Anyway, on to the idea. I have just been building a Peaks database from information pulled from this excellent site. The database contains Marilyns, Hewitts, County Tops, Munros and many more. I already have a database with all the trigpoints in it. This means I can easily plot any peak on Memory Map or on my GPSr and I can record my visits to that peak. This led me to come up with a crazy new challenge.

How many of these peaks can I walk to from my home?

Well my nearest Marilyn is Ruardean Hill. At a mere 6.61 miles away this will be a piece of cake. There are two new geocaches in that area, so I thought about including geocaches as targets from home. If I do a circular including both the route is about 20 miles.

The next nearest Marilyns are May Hill, Graig Syfyrddin and Garway Hill. All fabulous hills and all between 11 and 12 miles away as the crow flies. I plotted a route to Graig Syfyrddin and reckon I can do it in 26 miles if I stick closely to the route. I don't know how many of these I will get done, but it seems like a good challenge, so I'll be trying these over the coming weeks/months.

I also had an idea about doing the Three Peaks Walk in Yorkshire, so this will be some good training for that. The other great thing about it is that with the ever rising cost of fuel these days I don't need to use the car.

I parked up in a residential area at Cwm and headed north and slightly east through some boggy ground (amazing for August) until I started getting a bit too close to a rubbish tip. The wind was blowing in my direction and I was beginning to wonder what I was doing here. I met to guys fitting a new gate and felt that they really had picked the wrong day for the job. The path then doubles back south and continues to climb steeply. Once the high ground has been gained it's a great place to be. Standing on the top of the hill cuts out all the unpleasant views of the valley town and most of the road noise too. I walked past Darren Ddu where a small herd of nomadic cows wandered by and then down to the lovely Derri Merddog, when the hillside is covered in Oak trees despite being on a 1:1 gradient. The descent down was lovely with plenty of birds of prey and fungi to be spotted along the way. We stopped off at the car to grab some more water and a coffee and then set about the western wing of the butterfly. The track log looked remarkably symmetrical at the end.

We walked through the woods up to the back of Festival Park (retail centre) losing the path for quite a while. Then it seemed to disappear, so we went for the direct approach. Big mistake, well it always is! The very steep climb through 7' high ferns interlaced with stinging nettles was tough and I was exhausted by the time we eventually reached the summit. After a long a excellent walk along Craig Rhiwargan I almost reached the point where I had crossed to Manmoel earlier in the year (oops another one I haven't documented yet), passing the huge crucifix on the hill, then heading back down to the car.

Earlier in the day I had spent some time on the Blorenge, before walking a couple of miles around Cwmtillery reservoir between Mynydd James and Coity Mountain, so the main walk was about 10.5 miles.

Again we were supposed to be in the Lake District, but the weather forecast was so bad we tried our best to follow the sun. The problem was that there wasn't any to follow. We tried to make the most of a disappointing trip. The route here is awful and the campsite must have been one of the worst and most overpriced ever, but having spent most of the first day in the car despite only a 100 mile journey we had one more nice day before the bad weather really set in and we had to cut the trip short and went to visit friends. Our best time was walking down the peninsula to Hurst Castle. We did some walking in the New Forest, but to be honest I prefer the ancient woodland of the Forest of Dean where we live, and it's much quieter. We still had some good father/son time though none of the excitement of the last trip where we were stripping off to wade through rivers and swim to islands.

Will, Bob and I spent a week based in the Talland Park campsite near Looe. We did a lot of walking (mainly geocaching) and became real fans of the coastal walks. The only problem is that they don't tend to lend themselves too well to circular walks. I'd always thought coastal walking was easy as sea level is obviously flat, but the truth is that the paths go down to the beach, then up to a cliff top... and so on. We also did some walking in-land around Liskeard, Lostwithiel and even Plymouth. The whole area was really quiet. We just turned up at the cliff top camp site and grabbed a superb pitch as the site wasn't booked up due to such a poor summer. We had a wonderful week of walking, fishing, building sand castles, eating ice cream. Despite the unhealthy diet of bacon every morning through to beers / coke last thing as there was an on site bar, we had a pretty healthy week with lots of exercise and fresh air.

One of our favourite places was Rame Head, just south of Plymouth, which boasts a fantastic peninsula with the remains of a tiny medieval church on it as well as panoramic views of the sea and coastline. We sat here and enjoyed a bonfire someone had left as the sun set.

We also did a fantastic geocache called Monkey Island, which had us scrambling onto a very steep and tidal island which was very close to our camp site. We were confronted by a hissing adder standing in our path on the way back. They are very common in this area.

Last time I was here there were poor views due to fog, but today, despite some black clouds, the views were great. Mynydd Llangorse looked fantastic with it's oval shape and fields all radiating out around it. I'll be walking it very soon. It was very, very windy on the top of the ridge today. I had to hold on tight to my coat while I put it on as I knew one slip and it would be gone forever. The last stretch is completely different to the rest of the walk as you descend into the green valley with the mountains behind you. There's even a short stretch in the trees. It's a nice gentle descent over several miles, though the ground can be a bit wet. It started to rain, but I wasn't worried as I knew I only had 3 miles of easy walking left. The thunder was rumbling in the distance. Later that evening we would have 2 weeks rainfall in 40 minutes. I arrived back at the waterfall where I had parked; dripping and tired, though very happy with an excellent walk. Bob was pretty filthy and tired, though I'm sure he was very contented.

From the pond we headed north through the park, with it's unusual alien design information boards. There were some lovely gnarled beeches on the way up to Mynydd Pen-y-fan trigpoint. It's amusing how some people have logged this on TrigpointingUK thinking it's the trig for Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons. They are very different indeed. A horrible summit remembered for it's vast numbers of bread wrappers everywhere, load of rotting crows, and a huge flock of seagulls, not to mention the stink. I had to double back a fair way along Graig Fawr, but this was a really enjoyable part of the walk. We then headed down towards Manmoel through fields of horned cows, keeping close to the fence ready to jump, but all went well. In places it looked like we were on an old railway line, though there was nothing marked on the map and after a boggy stretch we made it to the village. A pub which looked like a regular house, an old petrol pump, some lovely cottages, the Marine Colliery (1889 - 1989) and a lovely avenue of Beech trees are the things that stood out here.

After a quick loop we were back out in the wilds again with a long section of easy to follow path along the Sirhowy Valley Walk. The obligatory burnt out Transit van semi-blocked the route at one point, but otherwise it was very pleasant. We did walk along a disused railway near Argoed. We had a really tough section around here, where we just couldn't find any path and the undergrowth was fierce. There were a few difficult geocaches to find around Gwrhay, so it gave us a rest before we slightly struggled with a section back towards the pond which ran along a man made stream and boundary fences. We kept finding ourselves on the wrong side of the stream having to just stream and fence. Not our usual sort of walk, it was never-the-less great fun to do something a little different. I am surprised looking back at the logs that it wasn't longer, but I guess we did spend a long time looking for tupperware!

The Raven Walk is a circular 16 mile walk around Risca and Sirhowy Valley. I parked up at the Cwm Carn Visitor Centre, at the crack of dawn. There's an impressive new visitor centre being built, but the current one is just a portacabin - which was shut. After a severe back pain I fought the thoughts of going home and enjoyed a fantastic day walking the surrounding hills. I haven't published this as a walk as I threw in a few geocache detours and also the path is extremely hard to follow in places so I would not like anyone to try and follow my route. After the initial climb of Mynydd y Lan there's an easier stretch taking in a shooting range, an old chuch and a disused reservoir. There's a lot of sheep farming country to cover and some of the paths were not marked at all, so despite having the route plotted on the GPSr I still felt I was on private land at times, but I wasn't. After dropping down to Wyllie we had to fight our way through thick undergrowth to get back up the hill despite a path being marked on the OS maps. The easiest stretch was along the Sirhowy Valley Walk, which is a disused railway converted to a cycle path which lasts about 3 miles.

I added a steep climb by inserting Mynydd Machen into the walk, but the views were great. Then crossed the dual carriageway at Risca and headed to the last of the four carved raven posts along the walk. I took a wrong turn after the post and had to thrash my way through very thick undergrowth. I came out (via a farm's garden) battered and bleeding. I was beginning to tire and another steep climb was hard work. Once on the top of the hill at Coed Medart I just enjoyed the views and piece as the sun was going down. It was a tough day as I had a bad back problem at the start and after 21 miles, plus almost a mile of ascent my feet (and hands) were sore enough to make me forget about my back. Hopefully I'll do the walk again, and when I do I'll document the route so others can enjoy this interesting and mixed scenery. It is unusual for me to start in a hosing area and have a busy road to cross, but that's just 1 mile out of the 21.

Just a quick update to say we've not been sitting idly. Geocaching is kicking back in and we spent a day in the Cotswold Water Park walking around the man-made lakes. The weather was extraordinarily good for early February and coats weren't needed for the first time in ages. This winter has been very mild, but four days after the sun came the snow and we found ourselves snowed in for three days. I enjoyed some lovely snowy walks around Newland as well as sledging with Will. The snow really highlights how it's only you and the deer that use a lot of the woodland trails. We got very close to one deer and Bob even managed to resist the chase. The geese which live on an island in the lake nearby were standing around like spare parts, waiting for the ice to melt.

When the snow thawed we all went geocaching around Caldicot. I can't say it's a place I'd go again in a hurry, but it's OK to mix it up once in a while. It makes you appreciate what you've got.

Will and I decided to get out for a few hours and as this was the hill that started it off for us, he wanted to do it again. When we climbed it back on 30/4/2006 we didn't really know what we were doing. We parked in a bad place and climbed up through thick heather, then down, then up again. This time we made no such mistake. We parked at Porth-y-parc, found a geocache that's alluded us for ages, then made a circular walk to the peak. We headed north from Sunny View through the woods and then farm land, then back through woods again. The paths we had planned looked like they were very rarely trodden. We had to go through the middle of a farm with poor way marking, but the GPSr kept us precisely on the path and before you knew it we had picked up the signs again. Once on the hill we could see the route we had taken 9 months earlier. No wonder we were knackered. We're so much more used to it now we just flew up to the top. It's a great first climb, but it's just too busy a hill for me.

The views from the top of this hill are truly panoramic with the beautiful Black Mountains to the north and Skirrid Fawr just to their east. The Brecon Beacons to the west were shrouded in black clouds as is so often the case. The ridges of Hatterrall Hill and Crug Mawr standing majestically in the sunlight. I can't wait to get up there again.

I've thought about doing a geocache up here (there is one already) which uses the inscribed stones that are dotted around the place. They are of a religious tone and signed HJ.

We enjoyed a nice easy decent along a more authodox route meeting a walking club who were each climbing a stile. Will opened the gate and we walked through. "Now why didn't we think of that?" remarked the group leader.

At one point we were standing within yards of six gates and five stiles. A sort of Piccadilly Circus in the Welsh Mountains.

This was a family jaunt with the whole crew. Cath, Will, Sid, Bob and myself. We often walk here and it's ideal in wet weather as much of our walk is along the very quiet lanes. We park at the Skenfrith Castle and cross the river outside The Bell Inn. The pub looks nice, but tries to be grander than it is. Take the first road on the left and you probably won't see a car until Garway. Come to think of it we didn't even see one in Garway. The views over the valley here are stunning. Everything here looks vibrant regardless of the time of year. Cath and I always say that we want to retire here in 20 years time, buy an old Landrover and live the simple life. If you keep left at the junction you'll walk by an unusual square towered church. Walk up to the church and then diagonally across the field behind it. This route gives much better views than from the road.

The walk through Garway is on the road and it's not the prettiest place in the world, but you soon come to the Garway Inn, which is opposite a park. The pub is more of a real pub and has a pool table on a stone floor with open fireplace. This is the end of the village and we usually head right here across the park and on the way back down the hill. There are many routes you can choose to get you back to the castle. There's even a stretch where a farm straddles the track, which can be very interesting at milking time. As the weather really turned we took a quick route back over the fields. Most stiles can be avoided as only the perimeter gates where locked. We usually have to lift Sid over the final stile, but someone had cut the sheep wire with a pair of wire cutters. Garway Hill is a nearby Marilyn that can be covered in this walk and gives great views. We came back via Berth Wood trig point.

Bob and I left home at 07:40 to arrive at Llanthony Priory at 40 minutes later. It's only 20 miles from home, but the roads are pretty windy and it's 30 by the time you get there. A small party of walkers were assembling as we started the walk. After passing the handful of pretty houses in the village we crossed the river and started the steep ascent up through 1500 feet stopping every now and then to catch breath and enjoy the view back over the priory. It really is nestled in a narrow valley with high ridges surrounding it. To it's north side is Hatterall Hill which we visited recently.

We reached Bal Mawr trig point and were surprised to find we weren't at the peak yet. The ridge was pretty blustery, but it was a beautiful day .

We walked up to the Blacksmith's Anvil, a stone marking the joining of footpaths, but despite using the GPS to navigate the exact path we decided to chance it and find a more direct route to the dam. It was strange that a well documented path didn't seem to exist, but even stranger that we found a huge path which wasn't on the map and it went exactly where we wanted to go. The reservoir and dam are pretty impressive, especially at this time of year with the surplus water spilling over the top of the dam into the valley way below. We crossed the dam, did a quick geocache and headed back to the anvil. This time we went NW towards Capel y ffin (Boundary Chapel). We sat on the edge of the hill for lunch just enjoying the view and the peace. A really steep descent along a rugged path brought us quickly to low altitude. The village has an old monastery ruin, a trekking centre and farms. The path would have been tough to follow without having planned it clearly. Signage disappeared but we carried on and were proven correct. We passed through a field of carnage where several sheep had been killed over the last few weeks. Remains becoming spread further afield all the time.

We had a pleasant, yet muddy walk back to the priory. We carried on past Llanthony to do another geocache at the foot of Hatterall Hill. Like the rest of the day, there was no one around. Most day trippers had arrived after us and left before we returned. It would be dark in another hour or so. I can't wait for the longer summer days. I really want to get The Three Castles walk in again, but there's not enough daylight in the day at the moment, not to mention the mud. This is a great place though and another I will be back to soon.

At 08:50 we parked up at the hairpin bend near Neuadd Fawr. This is a great parking place as not only can it take several cars, but there's a small waterfall by it and longhorn cows in the next field.We followed the path and crossed the field to the north. The first sign said To the Hill and then yards later it became To the Mountain. Excellent. The path alongside and stone wall was pretty muddy, but this is something you have to expect on low ground at this time of year. We left the bright sunshine to enter a wood. Not something I've done many times in the Brecon Beacons. It was a pleasant stretch despite the lack of a view. When we came out the other side the ground was pretty wet again. This made it hard work, though the views down the valley to our right and the mountain rising on our left were great.

As we started ascending the comfortable gradient the ground got drier. If anything it was easier walking up the hill than it was on the level boggy track lower down. We reached the furthest most point of the walk quite easily and stopped for a coffee and a rest. The weather was really coming in now. I wasn't worried about it as I was well prepared and my attitude was, if it rains it rains. The forecast had also been pretty good, especially after the early part of the day. Coming up onto the top of the hill the wind was bitterly cold and I met the first people of the day. Two mountain bikers. I only mention this because the second half of the walk was like King's Cross Station. There were people everywhere.

I'd put a hat and gloves on my Christmas list and Cath had got them when I got home. They would have been well used today.

We passed two head stones, side by side on the edge of the hill, overlooking the valley and out to Pen Garreg in the Black Mountains. It's a bit morbid, but what a great place to spend the rest of time.

Visibility was very low and the ground was very boggy. Occasionally the mist would clear for a few seconds to reveal that you really were in the mountains. It's easy to forget this when you can only see for 50 yds. Just as we were getting used to the level walk the mist cleared to show a 300ft peak right infront of us. This was pretty tough with the wind blowing strongly in your face and your hands in your pockets because you've got no gloves.

I had a great chat with a Welsh walker who was using his GPS that his kids had bought him as a backup to his compass. I tried to convince him to do it the other way round.

We passed two trig points in the next stretch, reaching a height of 719 metres. The first trig point (Pen Allt Mawr) was in the poorest state I have ever seen and was tilting badly. It may not have long for this world. Incase you don't know - I love trig points. They bring a smile to my face every time I see one. Maybe it the sense of achievement on reaching it, or maybe it's just knowing you're at the top of the hill and you can go down now, who knows. The terrain went from boggy, to dry, to rocky and back to boggy again. It was hard work, but at least the sky had mostly cleared and the views were great. Unfortunately this was just as I began to descend. We sat on the side of the hill overlooking the relatively low Table Mountain and Crickhowell and ate lunch, Bob just sitting contently. The table was a fort and is surrounded by rocks. I assume these used to make up some kind of fortification. We had to pop up the hill while we were there. It's not as flat on the top as it appears from a distance.

The weather was really pleasant by the time be entered the last stage of the walk. The views of Sugar Loaf (that's where my hill walking all started) were terrific. Like the first part of the walk we were lower in the valley, alongside a stone wall with a muddy path. We chanced our arm as we weren't sure if we could get out from the path by the car, but be came to a path not marked on the map which brought us perfectly out right at the parking place.

We're learning all the time as this is still pretty new to us. Today we learnt to stay off low, boggy land and plan several routes, so that on the day we can chose a route where we're not heading into the wind whilst walking the mountain top.

13 miles seems to be our regular length now. It's funny how so many walks seem to end up being this length, as it's certainly not planned that way.

I had a limited amount of time available, but calculated I should just about be able to complete this walk if I started early enough, so I got up at 06:00 and was parked up at Oldcastle, near Pandy in north Monmouthshire at 07:00. The start of the walk was a bit of a mess as I couldn't get through a farmyard which looked like a right of way on the map, so I had to improvise. Another path took us by torch light though a farm yard where a lone sheep was trapped between us and a fence. Although Bob remained stationary the sheep panicked. Finally it made good its escape by ramming a plank in the fence and knocking it clean out (the plank). As soon as we got through the gate here we made a wrong turn and ended up jumping fences very close to farms to get us back on track.

Maybe farmers get a lie in on Sundays, but nobody seemed to stir and not a dog barked. We were back on track and the climb had begun. We'd climbed 1200 feet before there was any let up, but it didn't seem that difficult. Maybe I'm getting used to it at last. The 2°c temperature made it easy to wear a coat even up a hill like this. We lost the path again on the ascent, but a sloped wall next to the fence made an simple hop possible. As we neared the top the sun was coming up. It was a great feeling to reach Offa's Dyke Path before sunrise. The views were spectacular as the horizon burnt with a strong orange glow. There is a stone to mark the path and a carved arrow labeled Oldcastle. These stones appear at most junctions along the route. Buzzards were soaring on the strong currents.

We made the first trig point pretty quickly. There were three on the route and all on this path. As we got right on the top of the ridge we could see over the Welsh side which was spectacular with rugged mountains as far as the eye could see in the dim light. The wind was strong enough to need a coat, but it was behind us, so that was good. We could put the GPS and map away now as the path was very clear and it would be 6.5 miles before we needed to leave it. We found a good hiding place for a geocache which overlooked the valley to Llanthony, but to be honest you could set a cache anywhere here and it would be fantastic. With freezing hands I wrote the welcome page and left the small box on it's own awaiting it's first seeker.

By the time we had bagged the next trig the weather was turning bleak. We had an escape route, but didn't want to take it unless we really had to. If I'd not been on my own (with Bob) we'd have gone back via Rhiw Arw, but we reckoned we could make the next trig point. I could see the mist closing in from Graig Ddu. The ground got boggy in places for the first time, though dodging the muddy bit was easy thanks to the giveaway deep footprints of previous walkers. We grabbed the trig details and did an about turn. The wind was now in our faces and the rain was getting harder, so we pushed on to the path leading down to Red Daren and started down the side of the mountain. Soon we were sheltered from the wind and it became a pleasant experience once again.

The drop was steep and there were some beautiful streams along the way. I managed to end up on the floor once by standing on a stone that was like ice. We saw a car in the parking area at the bottom - this was the closest we came to seeing human life all day. A short stretch on a very quiet road and we were on Offa's Dyke itself. This path reminded me of the railway tracks I've been walking recently. It was wide and flat and out of place. The mountain which we had walked on rose to our right and the view of fields, hedgerows, trees and farms were to our left. The track was extremely muddy for a mile or so and it made the walking much more arduous.

A couple of times I had to check that I hadn't plotted the route along a river as the water was so strong down the path. Meantime Bob just ran along popping back once in a while as if to say "Great here, isn't it". Everything had gone perfectly, then the path disappeared. I had mistaken Offa's Dyke for a public footpath and it suddenly went private. Because of the time I had no choice but to follow the dyke. We ended up hopping fences and walking through the farm near to where we had parked, expecting to have to explain myself to someone at one of the four gates, but no-one appeared.

We got back to the car exactly at the planned time of 12:10. Now that's what I call a success story.

After last weeks walk to Biblin's Footbridge I planned this to be my westerly point for today and head the opposite direction. We parked at the roadside near Symonds Yat. I really object to paying for parking as it's free everywhere else in the area. We headed down through the forest. Bob disturbed a herd of deer, but by the time I had got the camera out the moment had gone, besides, it happens all the time round here. We came across cordoned off hollow with waterfall that I hadn't seen before. Soon we were heading steeply down to the river. We joined the river 1/4 mile east of the bridge so we had to retrace out steps. The river was a raging torrent compared to last week. The water level had risen dramatically. We enjoyed a nice flat leg of the journey, as like last week we had started on high ground which meant we would have a climb at the end of the trip.

We checked on the Wye Rapids micro cache on the way past. The wooden stopper in a film canister was still there as we found it back in April. Our 10th ever find.

Earlier I had seen two swans playing in the current. It just showed how powerful their paddling must be. Here there were more swans and several logs being swept downstream like match wood. A kayak paddled down. I don't know how they planned to get back. I'm not usually a barn conversion fan, but the one in the picture had a location that was really special. We got half way across the field and saw the cows with calves. There had been warning signs, but as there was no other route we thought we'd chance it. The field was so huge, we couldn't risk it - there may have even been bulls for all we knew. Our plans to get to the Welsh Bicknor tunnel were scuppered, but not to worry. We found a path back via Rosemary Topping. It's one of those places where everyone seems to be in some kind of a competition to spoil a beautiful place more than the neighbours. Why do these people collect derelict cars, caravans that have been gutted and are green with mould, not to mention broken washing machines, cement mixers, and any other useless object you care to think of. It's a crime.

No updates for ages as we've been geocaching a lot and walking the Tracks Project recently. Much of the caching has been done in the Brecon Beacons. I've walked Pen y Fan, Corn Du, Fan y Big, Chartist's Cave and loads of other great walks in the last month and have really come to love the Brecon Beacons. Today I was investigating an area with cache hiding potential, but first I took a quick climb up Chestnut's Inclosure to bag a trig point. This was the most overgrown trig I've seen. It's incredible how the undergrowth changes through the seasons looking at other people records on TrigpointingUK.com.

We parked up in Flaxley and walked up past Flaxley Abbey and through cow fields to the summit with great views of the Severn Estuary, though it was a little early for a good picture as it was too dark. That's my excuse anyway. Found some great hiding places and a terrific name for the cache, but this was a secondary reason for the walk. Down through Mugglewort Wood to a lovely little path running alongside a steam. There were those cutesy "V" bridges to stop the livestock from crossing.

We got to a point where we could cross a field and get on the dismantled railway, so of course I did. It was pretty overgrown, but by no means impassable. Then all of a sudden we reached a Severn Water thingy and the track turned into a perfectly manicured lawn. It was obviously used for access and was great to walk down. After a tiny detour, where a private driveway crossed the track, we carried on up to Longhope without incident. We aimed to do a circular walk as usual, and the plan was to head up to the woods and come back on the other side of the abbey.

We followed a beautiful covered bridleway, with trees overhead and stream to one side. I got a nice shot, just managing to keep the rotting, dump car from the picture. It was all going too well, then somehow, despite maps and GPS, we missed the turning. It didn't matter, there were other routes available. We crossed another bridge and ... cows. Not just cows, but calves. A bad sign... and sure enough, there he was, a huge bull. The cattle all jumped up immediately and we just waited near the escape route to see what would happen. I think they were just waiting for us to leave the safety zone. It certainly wasn't worth the risk, so we turned back. I hate cows. Did I mention that a local farmer nearly died a couple of weeks ago after being kicked in the head by one of his own cows. He is the step father of one of my sons friends. The path we should have been able to follow was marked, but the farmer had decided to ignore that and plant a crop across the field with no path. I thought the farmer also was required to display a sign if a bull was in a field which was a PROW. We made up our own path and headed for the woods.

It wasn't a problem getting to the woods and as this was a crop field there was no fence. The problem was that the well marked path on the OS map didn't really exist. Well it obviously hadn't been used for years and was like a jungle. Brambles everywhere. I had to keep stopping and unhooking them from my clothing. Then after half a mile or so a real path emerged. Then there were several groups of people, walking of jogging. It was really strange after not seeing a sole all morning. The route curved on the well defined, wide path and eventually came out at a car park by Gunn's Mill. It's a shame that this site of historic importance is still covered by scaffolding and polythene after six years. I have never seen it. We came back to Flaxley on the other side of the stream and found a lovely waterfall. The sound really gave it away. Finally, some more views of Flaxley Abbey (now a private property), a lovely church (St. Mary the Virgins) and some very pretty local houses.

This is a lovely 9.5 mile walk. Hopefully there will be no cows or bulls next time I'm here.

This was the day that this web site all started. Cath wasn't working today so I got up and headed for the hillside with Bob, allowing Will a rest after our good walk around the Black Mountains yesterday. I decided to stay local and left the car at home. We walked through Newland, down Savage Hill and sw to Lodges Farm before taking the path se just after the game bird enclosure. I'd only been down this path once before. Then Cath and I had ended up scrambling through undergrowth when we lost the path. Now shiny new signs adorned fence posts proudly exclaiming Lower Wye Ramblers Booklet No. 4. As I headed up the hillside I looked back to Newland and took the photo which has become the banner at the top of each page. Game birds were everywhere and Bob was being a handful as he just wanted to chase them all. In a thick band of trees at the top of the hill we came across a ruin. It's so overgrown and dark that it's hard to imagine anyone having lived here. We soon emerged into the daylight and crossed a couple of fields of cut hay and sweet corn that's probably gone past it's best. We crossed Rookery Lane and entered more fields, some >

where the path was cut through the middle of the crop. These roads were resurfaced a couple of years back. It's ironic that the only traffic they see is the farmer, yet the roads in the surrounding area are worn to excess, but they just stick a blob of tarmac in the holes and make them last another year. A dead badger lay at the side of the road and I wondered how anything could be driving fast enough here to kill it.

The first time I ever saw a badger in the flesh was when I came for the interview for my current job. Since then I've seen dozens, but unfortunately probably more dead than alive.

We arrived at Margery Lane and became aware that we were getting close to Clearwell, so headed south, away from home. The distant sound of shotguns and a far off tractor was all I could hear. We came to one of those paths that take you into a farmyard, past the cows in the cowshed and out to a field holding several bullocks, who came running to meet the company. They look cute from the other side of a fence, though yesterday we were in amongst several similar bullocks who were very well behaved. I noticed an unusual arch in the corner of the field. It seemed too high to be a bridge and it only appeared to have one side. The inside was like a small cave, with the obligatory corrugated iron sheet and other bits of junk inside. After a few more fields we walked back down Rookery Lane. It's one of those roads that turns to a track and then on to a rocky path, impenetrable to all regular vehicles.

Through a gap in the trees I snapped the view of Newland. The white buildings are the Almshouses and date back to the 17th century with All Saints Church behind. The building on the right was an old barn when we moved here, but was converted soon after. We saw one person and no cars the whole time we were out if you exclude leaving and re-entering the village.

There was a nasty sting in the tail of this walk. As I entered our garden I heard a bang and a dog yelping in terrible pain. A car had pulled up (not a local) and the dog had jumped out of the car right in front of an oncoming car. Despite the alarming noise the dog looked like it was just really in a state of shock but I'm sure it was badly bruised. This sort of thing keeps you on your toes.

I spent the following evening getting the template together for this site, working on the menu and graphic and deciding the general content. I decided to go for a 1024 screen resolution as most people use this or above these days. I use 1280 and I apologise if you use less, but that's life. I got the first working draft of the site uploaded and am now researching the local railway track routes. I've also got a call logged with my web host, as Perl scripts aren't working. A brief Live Chat Support session proved fruitless. I've designed and implemented a mySQL database for POI. I've never used Perl before, but hey, it's only another scripting language. It's nay rocket science.

As I said before, I guess the site will evolve as time goes by.

I'm not sure how I'm going to display these maps in the future as Topo makes sure you can't print (and hence display) in any great detail anything but small sections of the map from your PC for licensing / copyright reasons. You need to be zoomed in more, but then you can't see the whole trip. I may have to take a look at Fugawi or alternatively I've still got OziExplorer, but you get the gist for now.

For scale, 003 - 004 is just over 1/3 mile

This is how it looks from OziExplorer using an OS map that I'd scanned in and calibrated. I have reduced the image size, which means it's not so legible and it definitely took more effort to produce, but you do see all the paths and roads in the image.

Download the .gbd file for mapsource and the .gpx file