Day 52 - Tintern to Monmouth

News of the morning is that Nigel Davies has left Gloucester - shock horror. Good breakfast, a bright morning, and beautiful scenery as we leave Tintern - once again eschewing Offa's Dyke and following the Wye Valley route as far as Bigsweir. However, on leaving Bigsweir, we take an uphill road and paths which eventually lead to the Dyke trail. Through woods and a small plantation, we emerge into a field, and a steep descent into Redbrook. It's late morning, but a conveniently located pub (definitely The Boat) is open, and discussion is brief before we decide to take advantage of its hospitality. Ben and John sample a cider taken from a barrel "round the back" of the bar, the strength of which is such as to render the possibility of a second being deemed a potential impediment to our onward journey. This proves to be fully justified, first in terms of steadiness (the journey once more follows the banks of the Wye along a narrow and occasionally slippy path), and secondly in terms of timing (our arrival at the shelter of a bridge coincides with a short, but very heavy, rain shower). Typically efficient advance admin by John has established that a bus from Monmouth shortly after 3:00 p.m. should get us to Newport in time for our trains home, and enable us to repeat our Carwyn-free achievements of days 49 and 50. We arrive in Monmouth in time for a leisurely lunch opposite the bus station at The Robin Hood pub, the bus arrives on schedule, and there are no delays in getting to Newport. However, our train is delayed by 15 minutes and, just prior to its arrival, Ben announces that he can't find his ticket. His unsuccessful attempts to find it (by retracing his steps back to the barriers) mean that he almost misses the train but, having boarded, he then finds the ticket in some "folds" in his pocket. The train delay also means that John misses his intended connection at Bristol, but at least he can share a half bottle of red in the buffet and has only half an hour to wait for a later train at Parkway. Otherwise, incident free returns home.