Somerset: Woodhill Bay to Severn Bridge 11/10/2002**

 

Toyota Park   Old CWS Flour Mills, Avonmouth Docks   Avonmouth Docks   M5 Cycleway entrance   Val at Severn Bridge celebrates with bottle of water   Tony at Severn Bridge celebrates with lemon sherbet

We walked up past Battery Point through the wooded area as far as the pier and the marina, which is largely a building-site and new estates of houses.  Walking down to the centre of town we happened upon a back alley where two alien grasses were growing, the bottle-grass like yesterday and millet Sorghum halepense.  We quickly left the main road beside the Leisure Centre.  The lane was surrounded by more construction sites.  We managed to find our way through this wasteland to the track that ran south to the minor road through Sheepway, an alternative, if we could negotiate it, to having to walk beside the A369.  The track was not public right of way and we finally came to a gate where the disused railway line crossed it.  We were able to open it, but had to climb the one on the far side where it said “private road”.  It led to a farm, but we were fortunate to find a way across the dry ditch beside it, where there was a gap in the hedge, and thus into a new housing estate.  We soon emerged into our intended road and were able to walk east for nearly a mile before taking a footpath just before the road reached the A369.  This path was again diverted around a vast car-park for new Toyotas waiting to be sold, beside a tall perimeter fence topped with barbed wire.  This was officially designated a “green corridor”, although it was waste scrub dominated by bristly oxtongue and rabbits.  The path and bridleway took us as far as the road going north into the industrial estate in front of the Royal Portbury Dock, presumably where the Toyotas had been unloaded from container ships.  Along a side-road we found the start of the footpath that was connected with that running beside the River Avon.  This path had a “closed” notice, but we had no other option and so we embarked upon it anyway.  Although it was rather overgrown we managed pretty well until we emerged at the point where it linked with the Avon path.  This whole area had been converted into another huge Toyota car park and the original paths were completely gone.  A new road more or less followed the old route, but it only led us to a locked gate. The path from the Avon alongside the M5 motorway was on the other side of very tall metal barriers.  We talked to some workers here and they eventually admitted that the old footpath was being diverted (well away from where we had reached!) but the alternative route was not yet available.  Fortunately they realised they had a legal obligation to provide access and we were grateful that they unlocked the gate and let us out.  The track led under the motorway and up an embankment on the other side, where the foot and cycle route alongside the motorway bridge enabled us to cross the Avon.  We eventually emerged on the main road into Avonmouth Village, the older part of Avonmouth.  Here we found a small park between two churches where we could have our lunch on a bench.  Soon, however, we had to endure walking along the busy A403 for two miles.  It was the only route north following the Severn estuary, between the Avonmouth Docks and a vast industrial complex. Lorry fumes and gases from chemical factories soon had our throats and noses burning, although at least there was pavement all the way.  Eventually we reached the point where the Severn Way (Bristol Link) left the road to take us along closer to the Severn.  It was signed on a gatepost and we were pleased to see it there, but our pleasure was short-lived, as we could not find the route, ending up in a factory dead-end.  We eventually found some people in the reception office who were helpful.  One of them took us back to show us where the path continued, it having been obscured by various earth-works and a new railway line.  It lay beside the passenger railway that went from Avonmouth to Severn Beach, but the way was very overgrown and required the cutting back of lots of bramble and pushing through high nettles and burdocks that clung to our clothes.  We managed thus until we were near the point where the path was due to cross the mainline railway and travel along the other side.  The path was covered by impenetrable thickets of blackthorn, appreciated only by wrens, and we had to find a way on to the railway line itself.  We had tried to walk through the saltmarsh beyond but failed because the grass was too high and the ground treacherous.  Eventually we arrived at the point where the path crossed the rail and we were able to leave the line and descend to it, but again it was terribly overgrown and difficult.  Nevertheless we persisted until the path emerged into a wide concrete track that eventually, through acres of dumped rubbish, arrived at the embankments beside the Severn.  It was just one kilometre into the little community of Severn Beach.  Easy walkways here led us past the village beside the Severn until we reached the Severn Bridge a kilometre further on.  We celebrated by touching the ugly concrete supports of this vast, very long, motorway bridge that went across the Severn estuary and thus marked the end of the English coast for a while.  We also had a lemon sherbet each that we had saved!  We walked a few yards east to the Severn Bridge Visitor Centre, advertised near the bridge, but found it boarded up and abandoned!  The Centre’s café we had looked forward to was not there either.  We therefore walked back into Severn Beach, where we had noticed a bakery on the one main street.  Although it was just closing and the lady in charge wanted to clean inside, she did make us warm tea & coffee “to take away” that we could drink on plastic chairs on the pavement outside the shop.  We tried phoning taxi-firms for a lift back to Portishead, but none would agree to come for us for several hours!  We walked to the rail station, but found the next train would not be for another 1½ hours.  The bus service was equally unavailable at this time and would have only taken us into Bristol.  We enquired about more taxi firms at the Post Office, where the proprietor was very helpful.  When this still produced nothing we were on the verge of despair when she phoned a colleague in another Post Office at nearby Easter Compton, whose husband ran a taxi, and he agreed to come straight away.  We were very grateful, for there was nowhere to wait in Severn Beach, a village that did not even have a pub and the shops were just closing.  That evening and through the night our throats still burned from the chemical fumes. It had been undoubtedly the worst day of the coast walk so far. Approaching the Severn Bridge