Posts

“Amazing Mountain Walking by Train” in the South Wales Valleys

Bristol-based travel writer Steve Melia has published a website with over 100 walks by public transport starting in Bristol, including 20 (and growing) in the South Wales valleys.  Maps, descriptions, photographs and gpx files (to follow on a mapping app) can all be found on his website: www.greentravelwriter.co.uk/bristol .  He is urging walkers looking for mountain walks, to try using the trains through the valleys. Steve began recording his walks and putting them on his website and on Facebook two years ago.   Last year, he set up Railwalks.co.uk – a national organisation which aims to encourage walking by rail.   Following coverage in the Guardian , it now has 3000 members.   Greentravelwriter.co.uk is one of 60 websites listed on www.railwalks.co.uk , with information about walks from and between railway stations in each region and nation of Britain, including five in Wales . Steve said: “Of all the places I have been walking by rail, the South Wales ...
Read more

100+ Country Walks Surrounding Bristol Now Available by Public Transport

Bristol-based travel writer Steve Melia has now completed over 100 walks around Bristol, entirely by public transport.  Maps, descriptions, photographs and gpx files (to follow on a mapping app) can all be found on his website: www.greentravelwriter.co.uk/bristol .  A few of them walk out of the city, into the countryside, returning by train or bus.   Most of them start with a rail journey from Temple Meads, followed by a country walk between two railway stations.   They vary in length from 3 miles to 18 miles and cover much of rural Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and South Wales.   All of them are linear, finishing at a different place from the start. Steve began recording his walks and putting them on his website and on Facebook two years ago.   Last year, he set up Railwalks.co.uk – a national organisation which aims to encourage walking by rail.   Following coverage in the Guardian , it now has 3000 members.   Greentravelwriter.co.uk...
Read more

My Father, the Restless Emigrant

Image
My dad with me in 1963 In 2005, at the age of 67, my father and his second wife sold everything, left the country with just what they could carry, and settled in Aubusson, a town of 3000 people in the most sparsely-populated area of central France.  It was the first time in his life that he had ever been abroad. What drove someone from a peaceful western country, with no threat of war or persecution, to take such a drastic step? He died a few days ago, at the age of 85.  This is my attempt to make some sense of a life which often seemed to alternate between hope and disappointment, to teeter towards disaster, but never actually succumb.  This won’t be a conventional obituary.  I can’t write in the gushing media style, of a wonderful man who did so much for others.  I owe him a lot – mainly through learning from his mistakes.  He was a man of many flaws, but he was also a man of his time, and that’s what makes this story worth telling.  To understan...
Read more