St Arvans Walk, Nr Chepstow

I knew the weather was going to be fairly good as Welshmaid50, who is Carol Kirkwood's stand in (she's on a week's holiday) said so. With that in mind, we planned another walk.

The wife wanted to do Skenfrith, Herefordshire, again. I didn't. I wanted to do a walk we hadn't done before. We had a discussion. I won. I then looked through our Wye Valley - 40 Hill and Riverside walks - and settled on St Arvans and Itton Court walk of 7.5 km (2 hrs).

I decided on the 4x4 as that has a large open sunroof, and at the Coldra, Newport turned off to go along the more scenic A48. However, just a we got to Pwllmeyric just outside Chepstow we got stuck in traffic approaching Chepstow Roundabout. It appears Sir Tom Jones is appearing live at Chepstow Racecourse (9.30pm) although races and other things start beforehand. If only I'd known we'd have done Skenfrith! The real surprise is Tom Jones at 74 years (7 June 1940) is still going strong. Competing with Sir Cliff?

The start of the walk is near the Chepstow racecourse as it touches St Arvans bend on the A466 as you travel from Chepstow towards Monmouth (Via Tintern).

Again, I took loads of possible blip photo's but like this one best. It's of a friendly mule (a cross on it's back) that was in a field opposite Howick Farm, that probably thought my camera was edible.

During the walk I was greeted and 'eated' by my old friends, the horse flies, which drew blood that ran down my left leg. Still, it was a lovely day and we enjoyed doing a different route.

Afterwards we popped into Chepstow Town and I had an an Iced Cafe latte in Costa. The large version hardly touched the sides!

The town was quiet. They've probably gone home to get ready to go out and see Tom perform at The Proms.