I parked up at Brockweir on another misty day and walked Offa's Dyke Path, past the Devil's Pulpit, with it's excellent view down to Tintern Abbey. It's a good climb and there are few views due to the trees, but it made a great circular route to the most southerly point of today's track expedition. My route from Offa's Dyke Path to the track was scuppered by a path marked on the map not existing, so I diverted down the subsided quarry road that zigzagged down the steep hillside towards the River Wye. Our way was blocked by a disused quarry two storey building with a large sign reading Get out now. Bob went too close to the building and a container next to it and a recorded message belted out over a tanoy. Move away from the building. Alarms have been triggered. We contemplated going back, but just carried on in the end as we didn't fancy climbing up the hill again. We found the track immediately as there were again rails still in place. I didn't realize that this is the spot I had visited on a geocache. It looked different approaching from this direction.

We headed north, back towards Tintern. Sleepers and rails were intact for a while, first the rails disappeared, then the sleepers. I don't know why they were left here. There's a lot of wood and steel. The path was really pleasant and easy. I was surprised at how steeply the track climbed here. We were about 170 feet above the river. The path was obviously well walked and came out by the river, opposite the ruins of Tintern Abbey. I got a great surprise as there was another tunnel. I didn't know that this one existed. If I had studied the contours on the map it would have been obvious, but I guess I had originally thought that the railway crossed on the bridge at Tintern. This was wrong. The bridge where it did cross no longer existed. It must have crossed the river and then gone straight into the tunnel. So far I've seen most tunnels bricked up with a door built into the brick wall, or no attempt to deny access, but this portal had a pair of 7' iron gates. They looked as if they would be no problem to scale, but I wasn't sure it was a good idea to take Bob on this one and it was getting dark again. I didn't want to cross the river, so found a route to near where the tunnel emerged by the river.

We couldn't get down to the tunnel and weren't that bothered as I can't imagine the tunnel will be blocked at that end. We could have crossed the river and traced the missing piece of track between Brockweir and Tintern, but that should be an easy bit to do another day, besides, the preserved Tintern Station lies in this stretch and light wasn't good enough to take photos. I could see the station across the river with it's large sign proclaiming the station name. We wandered back down the riverbank and past the HAPPA centre to where we'd parked up. This had been a really nice walk, though we hadn't covered a great deal of track.