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outdoorguyuk · 5 years

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Wye Boyo, Wye?

I know I keep banging on about it, but being unable to walk for a year got me itching to get out. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I got into climbing in a big way and have managed to do some short runs (10k and under, with a single 18k run) but I’m still not too confident my knee is fully ready for running regularly. I’ve been dying to do a fastpacking trip, however decided that for the time being hiking, wild camping and climbing would have to do.

Deciding it’d be good to catch up with some of the Gosport boys, I sent a few invites, with Matt & Joe saying they were up for it. Matt had recently had surgery on his knee after a split meniscus so was in a similar state to me, which was a good thing in many ways. God we’re old. I decided that seeing as Matt lives in Bristol and Joe’s in Gosport, the Wye Valley would be an easy place to meet & hike. The Wye Valley is stunning, fairly wild, not too mountainous but with some lovely hills, well forested with a huge water source flowing through the middle. Not to mention some great pubs. Matt lives in Bristol, Joe was coming up from Gosport and me from London, so it was probably the closest location of the sort for all 3 of us.

Joe and I arranged to meet at 7pm in Chepstow and miraculously arrived 5 minutes apart which was a good omen. We parked the cars up in a side street and decided to go for a few pints, leaving our gear in the car. I’d scoped out the Three Tuns, a lovely pub right by Chepstow Castle with the friendliest staff, awesome local beers (very affordable too) and a great beer garden. About 7 pints and a few rums later, the pub closed, we were turfed out and decided to get our gear and start the hike. Obviously I’m sure you can see the potential for things to go wrong here.

Lads lads lads! Dogs dogs dogs! Chepstow massive.

Somewhere, during the first and last drink, Joe realised that he had forgotten a minor bit of kit. No biggie, it was only his sleeping bag, the tit. We got to the cars to pick up our gear and he managed to find a blanket to strap to his backpack. I probably hadn’t mentioned but Ripley my dog was also with us, and she was also super hyped for a drunk hike through the forest.

The Three Tuns - Ace boozer, ace beer, ace staff.

I had probably over estimated how easy it would be to find somewhere to camp. The only wide open spaces on the first many drunk kms of the hike were cow fields with grumpy looking bulls, farmers fields full of crops or a massively overgrown Offa’s Dyke Path with high fences on either side.

The entire way Joe was roasting me as I’d been giving it the large one about my new Black Diamond Storm head torch (review to follow), as my Silva Trail Runner 2 had died after years of abuse. The damned thing didn’t work at all and looked like I’d strapped a tea light to my head. Luckily Ripley seemed to instinctively know to follow the trail and dragged me along safely/drunkenly in her wake.

After many kilometres and over 3 hours, we finally found somewhere to camp in forested area, set up the tents & fired up the Primus Lite stove for a couple of drinks before bed. I was using my trusty Coleman Raid for Ripley and me, while Joe had bought the amazingly priced (£19.99) Decathlon Arpenaz 2 man tent (which only weighs 2.2kg, great at the price).

Get off the tent Ripley. Man’s best friend they said. Dick.

I had an amazing night sleep, as did Ripley. Joe suffered the entire time, which was amazing and definitely karma for him being mean about my head torch. It turns out the blanket he picked up whilst spannered, turned out to be really thick, but really small and just about covered one of his legs. Basking in the glow of his suffering and my comfort, I decided to have a look at my head torch and it turns out I don’t know which way batteries are supposed to go around when I’m completely munted. The Black Diamond Storm lit up the trees like a miniature sun in my hand and all was well in the world. I knew this was going to be a good day.

Joe, Ripley and I decided to set off without further ado, as we’d planned to meet Matt in a car park approximately halfway between Chepstow & Symond’s Yat. We had an amazing hike, the scenery was stunning, and we got to see a few of the climbing areas around Ban-y-Gor, Wintour’s Leap & Tintern Quarry. We even found a place called the Devil’s Pulpit and after Googling it, this turns out to just be a square rock on the footpath, but we assumed it was the tree that seemed to have turned into a giant rock with some sort of weird pagan clearing & steps vibe going on right behind us.

Feeling Cute. Might do a sacrifice and delete later.

Being the planner I am, I’d decided that a mid morning stop at a boozer with maybe something for the hair of the dog and a bite to eat might be in order. The Brockweir Country Inn was at a good point on our route and looked stunning. Unfortunately, when we got there, they had lynched a hiker from the top window and the man scouring the brickwork in a painstaking effort to bring the pub back to its former glory, informed Joe that it was closed for the first time in 400 years. Just our bloody luck. The next boozer was miles along the hike if we didn’t want to take a huge detour. Still, the chap was kind enough to fill up my backpack bladder, so onwards and upwards.

The valleys are dark, the hills have eyes #lynching

Following on from Brockweir, most of the steep inclines and declines were behind us and the Offa’s Dyke trail opened up some stunning & picturesque wide open views as we hiked along the riverside. Our progress was much faster unimpeded by hills and we made good time before stopping for lunch at Bigsweir Bridge. Joe and I cracked open our freeze dried foods, fired up the ridiculously fast Primus Lite stove (seriously, this thing is ace) and chowed down. I also took pleasure in pointing out that my 1000kcal Expedition Foods were not only tastier, but considerably better value for money than the Decathlon 600kcal packs. We didn’t give ourselves much time to eat as Matt was due at the Cadora Woods car park just up the road and we realized we didn’t have any reception at all.

Lunch at Bigsweir with the Primus Lite stove! My Expedition Foods are bigger than yours, and I’m like...

Miraculously, we got to the car park (only 20 minutes late), sat down for 5 minutes and panicked a bit trying to work out how to get a hold of Matt, when he rocked up in his car. Thank God. With the team assembled we took stock of our situation - having realised that there was a hog roast and mini beer festival with local bands in Redbrook (we saw an advert on the bridge a mile earlier) it was obviously something we couldn’t miss, however it was still quite a hike there. If we were going to spend any meaningful time there, we decided it’d be best for us to skip a leg of the trail, head there in Matt’s car and leave it there so we had transport closer to Symonds Yat. Fate was on our side.

Gspot Squad all up in your hogroast!

Arriving in Redbrook, we were a bit disappointed to see that the festival appeared to be predominantly populated by small children. I’m ok with this when I’ve got mine with me, but looks a bit weird when you don’t. Still, after we’d parked up and got some stuff from the village shop, the number of adults had increased so we dived right in. Local beers were on tap for an amazing £2.50 a pint from a local brewery. The bands were good, people were lovely and it was too tempting to stay, but we had a mission to complete and wanted to get some climbing along the way, so we decided to get our skates on and head uphill into the forest.

The last thing Matt’s victims saw

The trek through the forest towards Symonds Yat turned out to be considerably more steep than we expected. Perhaps it was having had a few beers in the sun, but it was a bit of a shock. It shouldn’t be, as I can read a map, but I’m an optimist and often suffer as a result.

We followed the official border between England and Wales, having departed from Offa’s Dyke (the old border) and were rewarded by some truly stunning views. I had hoped to visit Rodge Wood along the way where (I found on the amazing UKClimbing site) there was apparently some good bouldering, but we somehow missed it and decided to carry on. Continuing along the border, we continued our search for the famous Suckstone (jokes ahoy, boom boom). The suckstone is apparently the UK’s biggest boulder and it didn’t disappoint. Walking along the path, we spotted it jutting out amongst the fronds and Ripley shot off to investigate.

The sight of the famed Suckstone from the trail! #winning

One side of the Suckstone is a head height overhang, whilst the other side is a huge slab. Apparently it had been cleaned a few years ago, but unfortunately it was completely covered in moss, making climbing it a little tricky. There are some really nice routes with little crimpy holds, a nice side arete route, and some cracks too. When cleaned I imagine it’d be a nice place to spend a good afternoon climbing but things felt a bit hairy with moss crumbling off the wall on every hand and foot holds.

Posted again, for extra ego - The suckstone. Not nearly as dramatic as this photo suggests but don’t tell anyone.

Further up from the Suckstone is Hearkening Rock, which looked better for trad and top roping so we had a little scout around but as things were getting late, we headed on towards Symonds Yat.

The route was pretty steep and downhill, with our quads really taking the brunt of it. With all 3 of us old men having shot knees (mine from smashing it up skateboarding, Joe from the Brecon Beacons fastpacking trip and Matt from Basketball) things got punishing but we pushed on. At the bottom of the hill, we found a nifty rope bridge leading to a scout camp at Biblins Cave and followed the trail around to Symonds Yat.

Symonds Yat is quite a strange place. It’s a bit hobbity with everyone living by the river on steep hillsides, with little rope pulley boats to take you from pub to pub on either side of the river. Absolutely amazing - boat pub crawl ahoy! Except we’d finally arrived there at 10pm so only had an hour and a half to sink a few at Ye Old Ferrie Inn rather and cross the river to try the Saracen’s head in the morning. As to be expected, we arrived 3 minutes after the chef had closed down the kitchen so the pub were kind enough to let us crank up the Primus Lite stove and get some Expedition Food packs down us (mine is bigger than Joe’s #1000k4TW).

Wolfing down as many pints as we could cope with (they had amazing beers there) we decided to hike back up the extremely steep hill that Symonds Yat West is based on and find somewhere to camp. Brutalised by the climb, we arrived at camp stone cold sober and crashed out.

Dog Pillow

We had a great night’s sleep (even Joe seeing as Matt had brought him a sleeping bag) and when Ripley and I woke to get out of the tent, we were confronted by a scene that looked like Jurassic Park. There were giant fronds everywhere, with a huge cliff face surrounding us that we hadn’t managed to notice, even with the sun like beam of my new Black Diamond Storm head torch. It turns out that we had inadvertently camped in the middle of Bailey Quarry without realising - what a stroke of luck!

After packing up the tents, we decided to have a bit of a climb. Bailey Quarry has got a number of fantastic trad routes of varying grades, but as we didn’t have any kit beyond shoes, we decided to have a bit of fun soloing the routes up as far as we were comfortable. It’d be cool to come back and try these top roping which we’re planning to do later in the year.

Heading off back down the hill, we reached the rope ferry and crossed over to the Saracen’s Head pub to get a bit of mid morning lunch. We didn’t want to spend too long here (despite the pub, food, beer and view being second to none) as we were pushed for time and wanted to check out some of the bouldering up the hill in Symonds Yat proper, with still having quite a long hike back to the car in Redhook, so we stuffed down a meal and a pint before heading off.

The hike up the hill was steep but not too far, although some of the road hiking was a little hairy. We got back on the trail and wandered around, managing to find a few of the cliffs and some boulders probably a bit above our pay grade.

Despite having two climbing guides, an OS map and GPS on our phones, we struggled to find the boulders we were looking for. Perhaps because we were exhausted, perhaps because we’re useless, or perhaps because we were becoming aware of how short on time we were for the 4 hour hike back to Matt’s car followed by a 30 minute drive back to ours, with a 3:30 drive back to London on the end, we decided to call it a day and start the trek home.

The trek back to the car was probably a bit more arduous than we were expecting.

4 hours later we got to Monmouth and 20 metres from the boozer (of course, a quick pint was necessary) Ripley dropped into a fur puddle on the floor and refused to move. To be fair she’d probably done around 40 miles and hadn’t complained once so fair game. Upon entering the pub and enquiring about taxis, a fella named John at the bar was kind enough to offer us a lift so I put some money (which he had refused) behind the bar for him and we headed off to Redhook.

Rippers, doing the butterfly chicken, I’m not moving another inch pose.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend with the lads and I’m looking forward to more again soon. TBC!

#Hiking #fastpacking #Wyevalley #offasdyke #wildcamping #climbing #sproodles #sproodle #springerpoo #symondsyat #climb

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