A few weeks ago my home city of Cardiff was put into lockdown and nobody was allowed to leave unless they had a very good reason. Not knowing exactly where the limits of this open prison were I decided to walk around the boundaries of the city, giving one day a week to the exercise, but before I finished my project the rules had changed again. Wales is now in a "Firebreak" or "Circuit Break". There is no limit on the amount exercise I can take, and hence the distance I can walk, so long as I do not use a car or public transport, so I can now in theory leave Cardiff provided I walk from my house. At least that is my understanding, keeping up with the ever-changing rules is difficult, especially as they differ from those in England, and I suspect many people do not bother. As I had walked three quarters of the way around the city, keeping within the Cardiff County boundary, I thought I might as well finish.
So I returned to Cardiff Gate service area by the M4 on a day of intermittent showers and sunshine, and continued east. This lead into another new housing development before I joined a more established neighbourhood. While it was urban walking the changing colours of trees, from green to yellow and red, were attractive in the periodic patches of sunlight. Cardiff Garden Centre, with its giant spade standing outside, was closed, no doubt owing to the Welsh "Firebreak", although lights had been left on inside. Beyond it was another new housing development. One observation from my walk around Cardiff has been the large number of new houses being built, invariably without any sign of any new shops or other facilities. I then turned down a quiet lane through the St Mellons Golf course. There are a surprising number of golf courses around Cardiff, although it is not a pastime I have ever been attracted to, no doubt because whenever I have tried to hit a golf ball, it seemed to go in a direction contrary to the one I intended. St Mellons Golf course did not seem too welcoming, especially to dog walkers.
After St Mellon's Business Park, with its roads named after old programming languages, I tried to cross fields on a public footpath marked on my OS map. There was no footpath sign and no way across a water filled ditch in the second field I entered. Later I tried to find the path from the opposite direction, but the presence of a wider water filled ditch (called Faendre Reen on the map) prevented this too. Evidently the "right of way" was no longer in existence. The "reens" in the area are channels that are part of the field drainage system for this flat plain beside the River Severn, that date back to Roman times.
I had more success after walking along the street at Hendre Lake Park, which I never knew existed before today. As the name suggests there is a lake with ducks, swans and fishermen beneath their green canopies. I followed the path around it then a leafy track beside a reed lined drainage canal (called Pil du Reen) south of some housing. After a children's play area I followed rougher paths, where brambles had been cut down, to reach a path that took me across the railway into an industrial area. The railway is the main line in and out of South Wales with four tracks, that has recently been electrified, although I have yet to see any electric trains.
I followed the coast road towards Newport, until I saw a sign welcoming me to the city of Newport, although it was actually several kilometres away across fields, this is where the county borough of Newport began. Not wishing to cross the boundary out of Cardiff, I turned right onto a footpath over fields, with some just about passable wooden footbridges across ditches. Reaching the embankment that protects the area from flooding I followed it beside the River Severn estuary towards Cardiff on what was now the Wales Coast Path.
To reach the starting point of my circumnavigation at Cardiff Bay, I could have followed the Wales Coast Path along its original route, close to the sea, around the steel works and other industrial areas. However, although I found the original route still passable, the Coast Path has been diverted through a park and the streets of Tremorfa. Following this diversion I rejoined the original Wales Coast Path route by a large roundabout and then followed it down the remnants of a canal to an old dock with moern apartments and cormorants sitting on old wooden posts. Shortly beyond was Cardiff Bay and its railway station.
As people in Wales are currently not allowed to use public (or any other) transport unless essential I walked back home, diverting through the City Centre to see the impact of the lockdown. All the shops and shopping centres were closed, but the banks and some of the coffee shops were open, the latter just for takeaways. I bought a latte and sandwich which I ate in the pedestrianised area by St Johns church. There were more people about than during the lockdown in April, a couple of Deliveroo cyclists were cycling around in circles, maybe waiting for the next order.
Between University and Welsh Government buildings there was a new tented walk-in Coronavirus testing centre. There were plenty of students around. Social distancing was not that evident as they walked by in groups.
For a gpx track of my route visit wikiloc.com.
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