Coast Walking (Wales): Nash to Caldicot 1 June 2016

Having parked in central Newport near to the railway station (which has no parking), we took a taxi to the Newport Wetlands NNR Visitor Centre. From here we followed the coast path west and around the perimeter of the reserve, a power station standing between it and the mouth of the Usk. Although the OS map shows large lakes occupying most of the reserve, these are now almost entirely reed-beds, with only a small amount of open water. Tufted Duck was the only water bird we saw, and there were few other birds to be seen. There were, however, lots of Southern Marsh-orchids and one stem of Marsh Helleborine in bud, emerging through a dense growth of thistle, dock, Common Fleabane and Hemlock Water-dropwort. We continued on the path, which on the southern edge of the reserve bordered the mud and saltmarsh of the Severn estuary. We were unable to continue along the sea-wall, however, and the path diverts inland up a minor road to the few scattered houses of Saltmarsh. Just before the Nash-Goldcliff road is reached a path goes east through fields and only comes out briefly along the road at the beginning of Goldcliff, before diverting south through fields again to the edge of Goldcliff Pill, which it then followed NE back into the far end of Goldcliff. The Farmers Arms pub here was closed, although approaching lunchtime, so we continued east along the road to the track leading through a bird reserve, Goldcliff Lagoons, composed of several open water lakes, with hides overlooking. We saw Lapwing here, plenty of Redshank, a few Dunlin and a lone Turnstone. The coast path diverts east from here to a minor road leading to the shore, where we found a private house called Seawalls that had a rudimentary shop and sold basic food and drink, which one could consume in an attached room, summer-house or outside tables. In an area with no other facilities (other than the now distant NNR visitor centre) this was welcome and we could take a break from a cold wind and dark cloudy skies. Here the trail went to the top of the embankment and continued there eastwards for mile after endless mile, the, at first, vague outlines of the first Severn bridge helping to draw us on. There was saltmarsh of Sea Plantain, Thrift and English Scurvy-grass, but generally the shore was plain mud, with occasional small groups of Shelduck, one group of Oystercatchers, a lone passing Cormorant, and a Heron frightened up by our presence from the inner ditch. For a long time the embankment was cow-grazed and easy to walk, although with little botanical interest, apart from some Rest-harrow and Narrow-leaved Birdsfoot-trefoil. The day was too windy, overcast and cool for much insect activity (only three butterflies in total), but we came across a Drinker Moth caterpillar in the path. After we passed the smelly sewage-works south of Urdy, the grassland management of the embankment changed somewhat, so that there was hardly a flowering plant to be seen, and the path was rutted by vehicles driving along, probably in connection with bird-shooting, as private rights to this were asserted on a notice at the beginning of this section. The only relief was a solitary Little Egret in a saltmarsh pool. The walk here became more of a drudge (but then we had already walked a solid six miles of uniform embankment) and we were glad when the path turned inland beside a sluice towards Severn Tunnel and Caldicot stations, passing over the persistently noisy M4 motorway. From the bridge we saw that we were just past the tollgate where we had had to queue on the way to this holiday - now it really felt that the end was very close indeed. Although we walked to Caldicot, when we got there we found that few trains stopped there and we had to walk back to Severn Tunnel (only a mile away) to catch one to Newport and avoid waiting over an hour.