Shirenewton to Abergavenny

Thursday September 16

My campsite for the night beside the Shirenewton football field.

This morning I was not rudely awoken, but woke up naturally. I haven't been setting an alarm at all on this trip, just letting myself wake up when I do, which is normally 10:30 or 11 am. And people say you can't sleep in when camping!
First thing I do when I wake up is check the time on my watch or iPhone. I went to turn on the iPhone but it was dead - gave no sign of life at all. Tried again, still nothing. This worried me greatly, I thought about all the things I need it for: maps, web, email, blog, torch, music, notes, photos, etc. Again I realised how much I was relying on it, it's my life support. And I'm it's life support, by giving it charge through the bike dynamo hub. It was 80 % charged when I'd gone to sleep, so thought it couldn't just have a flat battery... but upon further close inspection, I could just make out a dim flat battery symbol on the screen. I connected up the cache battery to it and breathed some life into it. Don't scare me like that iPhone!
I realised I was really hungry, since I hadn't eaten tea the previous day, so I packed up and went in search of a shop, and discovered there were none in Shirenewton. Oh no! The next major town was 20 km away, a town called Usk, and I had to go through struggle town to get there. Seriously, it's so hard riding with no energy. All I had to eat was a banana and some blackberries along the way.

Stopping to eat blackberries on the way.

A farmer moving his cows across the road.

I got to Usk and found the supermarket. Wow, food tastes so good when you're starving, I devoured that cereal! Have I mentioned I like cereal?While out the front of the supermarket, a bloke stopped to chat, to ask where I was going and where I'd been, lots of people ask me this, I've found. This guy was middle-aged, friendly, had a strong accent. He offered me a few pieces of advice that I can remember, after I told him I was going to Ireland:
Welsh bloke: "be very careful in Ireland"
Me: "why is that?"
Welsh bloke: "because they're crap drivers!" And he went on to describe examples of their poor driving.
He also told me: "In Ireland, and in Wales as well, if you're at the pub and a girl says to you "do you want to come back to my place with me? I'll make you a nice bit of cake", don't go, because you might never leave again! And that could be you. You won't get many stamps on your passport then, will you?"
After that I was on my way to Abbergavenny. When I got to the main road leading to the town, the A4042, it was a dual carriageway with no shoulder, and was quite busy, so after consulting Google Maps I decided to take a detour and headed down to the turn-off to Pontypool and stopped at the McDonalds for some free Wi-Fi. Then by the time I headed toward Pontypool, it seemed to be peak hour, because there was a constant flow of traffic and no shoulder, again I felt quite endangered!

A busy road with no shoulder during peak hour.

I did survive though, and took the turn off to Abertillery. I wanted to go there because, from memory, this is where my ancestors on the Powell side were from. I didn't get time to note down the family tree before I left unfortunately, and there are lots of similar names to Abertillery in Wales, so I don't know if I got the right one. Auntie Janet is the knowledge bank on our family tree, so I emailed Dad to get her email address, still haven't heard back, check your email Dad!
To get to Abertillery, you go up through a big gorge, and I was sticking to the quieter road, so it was quite pleasant. It was a long uphill slog all the way to Brynmawr though.

Heading towards Abertillery.

In Abertillery I stopped for a late lunch of the same old tomato and tuna rolls, and a bloke strolled over to have a chat. He was waiting for his mate to come past and pick him up and head to the pub.

Near Abertillery

He was a friendly young bloke, an electrical contractor, he reckoned there'd been less work around in recent times, due to the recession, and reckons people are still holding on to their money.Further up the gorge I rode past a few kids on their bikes. They caught up to me after I passed, wanting to know what I was all about.

A curious kid that was chatting to me.

Wow, kids ask so many questions! They just fired question after question at me, they held me up for about 15 minutes.
"Where have you come from?"
"What are those for?" [gear levers]
"Do you listen to music while you ride?"
"What brand of cigarettes do you have in Australia?"
Unfortunately they smoked, and they were so young.
Some more friends of the boys came over and the boys exclaimed to them "he's from Australia!"

More young kids.

Eventually I said to them "okay I'd better keep going", and got away.
From Brynmawr to Abergavenny it was clear sailing, downhill the whole way. It was dark when I got there, but I sussed out a camping spot by the creek, then headed to the main street just to have a look around.
I was standing there looking at the map in the street, and I guess looking a little lost, when a bloke walking his dog with his wife and another couple with their dog stopped and asked where I was heading and where I'd been. So I told him, and said I just had to find somewhere to pitch the tent for the night. He reckoned there weren't any coming grounds nearby. Then he kindly offered for me to set up the tent in his back yard. I said "aw yeah...well if it's not too much trouble, that'd be great! How far away are you?"
"Just a five minute walk"
"Yeah that's fine. Thanks a lot for the offer!"
"Well we can't have you just wandering around the town on your own at this time of night."
We introduced ourselves, his name was Mike.
So I followed them back to their house, and chatted to the other guy, I think his name was Dan, and he's Mike's next-door neighbour. He works over in England so has to drive across the bridge each day, can't remember what he did though.
We got to Mikes house and I said good-bye to Dan, and he wished me well, as did his wife. Mike directed me to park my bike in the garage, and he must have softened a bit more or his trust/liking for me had increased because he said "now you have two options, you can either set up the tent in the back yard, or we have a spare room upstairs that you can stay in if you want, but the dog's been sleeping on the bed so there's a bit of dog hair there..."
I said "oh, well if it's not too much trouble I'll stay in the room, that'd be great! The dog hair won't worry me."
And with that, they did a quick tidy up of the room, I carried my panniers up, and I had a bed for the night! I was stoked. And it gets better.
Mike's wife introduced herself properly to me, her name was Bernadette, or Bern as Mike called her. So we had a bit of a chat, Bern spoke about how her daughter had been traveling through South East Asia, and how the locals try to get as much money out of the tourists as they can. Her daughter had been in some sticky situations, especially in the Philippines, but there had always been someone there who helped her keep out of trouble. So Bern reckons she tries to help people out (e.g. travelers like me) where she can, and hopes that other people will do the same.

I joined Mike in the lounge room and chatted while Bern cooked tea.

Mike had a big glass of beer, and offered me a beer, and while I would have loved one, I politely declined, not wanting to take more than I deserved - they'd already been kind enough to offer me the room for the night.
It turned out Mike was a freelance outdoor instructor, taking groups through caves, doing rock climbing and canoeing, hiking, problem solving games, etc. Groups come from all over the place, the group he had that day was from Salisbury (a town I rode through on the way to John Chant's place). He was working at Pencelli the next day (near Brecon, where I was planning to head through).
What a great job that would be! Before Mike was an outdoors instructor, he was the head teacher at a primary school, teaching mostly maths and English. But he gave it up because it was too stressful, and he loves his new job, reckons it's much better than his teaching job.
Mike gave me some tips on which route to take, and got the maps out to show me. He even offered the maps to take with me, said they were old and they have newer ones they use.
I told Mike what it was like in Australia, which he didn't seem to have much knowledge of. We also talked about sport; he asked if I played rugby. He said he wanted to go to New Zealand and go rock climbing there, especially the South Island, Mt Cook.
Mike and Bern's eldest son was quite well traveled, love of the outdoors seemed to have carried through to him because he'd been all over the world and was flying to Uganda the next day and going canoeing down the Nile.
Bern came in and gave me a plate of pasta, even though I'd said I was right for tea. Too kind!

Pasta for tea.

Bern in the lounge room.

We watched a documentary about old people who had various ailments due to old age and were being looked after by family members etc, so they made them live how they had been 20 years earlier, where they had to fend for themselves more, and do things like lift their own bags, walk up stairs, walk the dog, etc. And after just one week it was found that their quality of life increases markedly. So being looked after, protected and forbidden from any sort of arduous tasks, e.g, "oh no, you can't have a dog, you might trip over it and break your hip", this kind of cautious life detracted from their quality of life.
My respect level for Mike increased further during the documentary. There was some background music playing in it, and he quizzed Bern "what song's on in the background Bern?" Bern didn't say anything so I said "is it Pink Floyd?"
Mike: "no"
Me: "oh, it's, ah...Mike Oldfield"
Mike: "yes, Tubular Bells"
Me: "yeah, I knew it was a progressive...song."
Their dogs name was Floyd, so I asked Mike: "so did you name your dog after Pink Floyd?"
"yep. He's my boy!"
They gave me a towel so I could shower, which was greatly appreciated.
And I slept very soundly that night in a comfortable bed.

My bed for the night.

My self-portrait.

Ride stats
Distance: 72.40 km
Average: 17.1 km/h
Maximum: 53.4 km/h
Time: 4:14:04