A few years ago our daughter Sian moved to Llanidloes and when walking a small grandchild through the park next to the river I read a notice board which described the Severn Way, a walk from the source, not far from Llanidloes, to Severn Beach just the other side of the M4 Bridge. It struck me that, unusually for a long distance walk, it passes through some interesting towns and cities and that there ought to be a wide selection of places to stay.
The trouble with most long distance walks is that you need to book accommodation well in advance and then you are committed come rain or shine (or blisters). The Severn has been flowing for many thousands of years and the towns have been built along it’s course, Newtown, Welshpool, Shrewsbury, Ironbridge, Bridgenorth, Tewksbury, Worcester and Gloucester. All have plenty of accommodation options as well as interesting places to visit so if you are not pressed for time then you could easily spend over a month doing the walk but stopping at any of the places en-route which take you fancy or staying put if the weather looks a bit dodgy for the next few days.
With that in mind I started to plan my adventure, the first requirement was to see if I was up to carrying a rucksack and if so how far. I often walk 15 miles around the Shropshire Hills where I live but had not carried anything heavier than a waterproof and an apple, so I needed to experiment with different loads and sort out what I had to carry as opposed to what would be nice.
I also bought a copy of Terry Marsh's excellent guide to the route but soon came to the conclusion that his take on the journey was rather different to mine. His book is aimed at people with a fixed time frame in which to do some or all of the walk, that of course is the majority of walkers but as I am retired I am less constrained. So perhaps my version of the walk could be called The Severn Way Unplanned.
The guidebook says you should do the walk between May and September and to make sure your boots are well run in. As I never heed expert advice I am doing the walk in April despite the long range weather forecast looking a bit grim and I am wearing new boots!
I will try to update the blog each evening, as I have spent a great deal of time researching the walk and have lots of boring information which I am keen to share. One snag is that usually on holiday before I publish each days blog I pass it to the editor in chief (Gill) to check for spelling, grammatical and other errors. As she won’t be with me all sorts of rubbish will be published.