July 2022 we paid an impromptu visit back to Bracelands in the Forest of Dean. It was much busier than our first visit, but we still found a nice pitch under some trees. We went for a lovely walk through the woods down to the river and crossed the wooden bridge. The trend of putting a padlock on a bridge has spread to this area, pity we forgot to bring one for ourselves!
As the clouds came over we thought we’d better head back to camp and started our walk back up the hill. Within 10 minutes the heavens opened and we took shelter under a tree. It had been sunny when we set out so we’d not bothered to bring our wet weather gear! We’ll know better next time. In the end, we decided to just walk back in the rain, it wasn’t cold and we didn’t fancy spending all afternoon standing under a tree. So heads down, we set off. 10 minutes later Tim was watching his step when I called “did you see that deer cross the path in front of us?” “No, I didn’t came a muffled reply. This happened twice more, till Tim thought I was winding him up, but then we were rewarded by seeing a trio of deer who also seemed to be sheltering off the path under the trees. These were our only glimpses of deer on this trip, too many campers on the site for them to venture in for some grazing.
A thrilling evening was spent watching new neighbours struggle for nearly 2 hours to put up their awning before we settled in to watch a film on the T.V.
Next day it was dry and bright and we set off for Chepstow, this time making sure we had wet weather gear with us.
First stop was Chepstow castle car park, having negotiated the tortuous one way system in Chepstow town. No motor home parking bays! We managed to tuck the van into a corner and only had to pay for one parking space thankfully. Chepstow castle is a lovely well preserved old castle dating back 1000 years. One of my favourite pictures is of a door which is 1000 years old, it’s now carefully sited where it’s protected from the elements. The inhabitants knew how to live, a massive wine cellar could be restocked with wine barrels which were winched up directly from boats on the river directly below the castle walls. They clearly had their priorities right!
After a light lunch in the town we went to Tintern Abbey. It must have been a wonderful sight before the dissolution of the monasteries. Some of my favourite photos are of tiers of arches seen from the nave of the abbey. We took a photo of the main doors from the road and when we looked at the photos at home, I could have sworn there was the ghost of a monk standing at the doors. Next photo – it was a small door within the door! Ah well, we’re clearly not Ghostbusters.
