Day 53 - Monmouth to Pandy

Ben and Gary travel to Monmouth by train (to Newport) and cab, and John travels purely by cab. Remarkably, we arrive outside the Robin Hood within a few minutes of each other, around 10:15. The entertainment from John during the early part of today's walk is a series of 12 questions about the 1970's which, when posed in yesterday's edition of "Pointless", apparently secured a record high score of 600 (i.e. all wrong answers) from the 6 participating contestants. The author's modesty precludes him from recording the outcome of the questions being asked this morning, although the person who secured 12 correct answers didn't participate to any noticeable extent in the subsequent discussion about a tax issue. Anyway, back to the walk itself which is along a very picturesque and not too testing route. A few inclines and some short sections along roads, but essentially through fields close to or alongside the River Trothy, and with a couple of villages (Llantilio Crosseny and Llangattock-Lingoed) to pass through. Good progress is made, but a warm day combined with a desire not to reach our overnight stop too early, renders it advisable - if not necessary - to pause a while in the late afternoon sunshine at the Hunter's Moon Inn at Llangattock-Lingoed where we meet a couple of other people who are walking the same stretch of the Trail as us today and tomorrow - and staying at the same place overnight. They leave the Hunter's Moon before we do because our "pause" is one of about an hour which translates into a couple of ciders. Strangely, on the succeeding short stretch of the walk to Pandy, Gary falls off a plank into a shallow ditch, Ben doesn't spot a rather large hole in a field and almost trips over, and John nearly comes a cropper at a stile. These incidents do not prevent us from having a further cider when we get to the Rising Sun at Pandy, and yet another after we've freshened up and are ordering supper. Initial impressions of the Rising Sun are very favourable - comfortable rooms with copious free-flowing hot water in individual en suite facilities. Supper, with bottle of wine and followed by sticky, does nothing to change these impressions but, as always, then having a second sticky is probably a mistake!