Severn Way day 2

Tuesday 30th July

Uccingtton to Coalport

A couple of things from last night. My tent in the pub car park was about 8 feet below the level of the very busy, unfenced main road and only about 8 feet horizontally from the passing traffic on a long straight where vehicles must have been travelling at eighty mph. The noise was strangely exciting, and I experienced a suction followed by an inflation effect within the tent. I would have been brown bread if a car had left the road.

Mainly for JJ: the beer I had at The Horseshoe was Ringwood's Boon Doggle 4.2% - excellent rounded fruity bitter. There was a change of ownership here last March so old, critical reviews can be ignored. Ian and Mrs Ian had a positive response to everything I requested and made me very welcome. It must be understood they do not operate a formal camping facility and my arrangement was from their positive reaction and understanding of what I was about from a telephone call, so don't expect electric hookups and toilet facilities, but for a rough arse backpacker their response was great. Long may they continue in that brave isolated location.

I hardly saw the Severn today. A lot of the walking was on quiet country lanes with the odd short stretch on busy A roads. There were not many places for refreshment , but through persistence with enquiries (two 12 year olds with a football crossing the road) I found a village shop hidden away in the housing estate at Cressage where I was able to breakfast at 1:40 pm ( the Horseshoe had given me toilet access at 9:00 am with the cleaner, and a coffee gratuit).

I was caught in two short but severe rainstorms, but experience triumphed.

A little landmark saw me crossing my south to north LEJOG route east to west as I walked through Ironbridge. A couple of kilometres further I booked into the YHA youth hostel at Coalport where I have just eaten satisfactorily and inexpensively. This is a huge, purpose converted, multi-storey industrial building on the edge of the canal and finding the way from my room to the dining area has been more difficult than some of the navigation on this trip. The building has perhaps a hundred self closing (with a dull bang) fire doors, and lying on one's bed they can be heard doing their automatic thing at varying volume levels depending on which floor and how far away the doors are located. All in all this YHA is an excellent facility and I suspect maybe a blueprint for their future operation which has had a sad and indecisive history of late.


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