dam shame

We did another in our series of autumn walks last weekend, this time - having largely exhausted the possibilities of walks starting and finishing at Andy's place - starting from my place. We got the train from Newport to Pontypool and New Inn and walked back down from there via Llandegfedd reservoir and Caerleon. A nice satisfying 12.5 miles or so, the GPS-logged track of which (as captured by Andy, and expertly digitally stitched into a single image by me) can be viewed here.

A couple of other map-related points of interest: Llandegfedd reservoir was built in the early 1960s, so my 1948 Ordnance Survey map doesn't show it, as you can see below. I've included an intermediate map with the rough location of the reservoir outlined in blue (as for this earlier post about Wimbleball Lake in Devon).




As you can see, if you were to take a dip off the western shore near Sluvad Wood, you'd only have to descend a few feet before encountering the submerged remains of Pettingale village. I've no idea whether this periodically emerges from the waters in periods of drought, in the same way that Mardale Green occasionally makes ghostly reappearances at the head of Haweswater in the Lake District.

Anyway, as always, and despite it being a pretty grey and damp day, I took a few photographs, which can be found here.