Wye Valley

manage that.

I mean, a useful way of thinking about it, I suppose, might be to contrast the Mono Valley, which is where I live and near where you guys live, with the Wye Valley.

So the Wye Valley, which is just down the road from us, effectively, for the purposes of access rights, is Scotland.

It has huge swathes of access land because you've got the Forest of Dean, Forestry Commission, all of that land has been dedicated as access land under Crowe.

Large parts of the valley sides are open access land.

So often access rights is we're talking about walking, camping, cycling, all these kind of like get out there and do activity activities.

Whereas actually, I think our interest in access is much more about access for belonging, access for deepening relationships to your nearby environment, and then ultimately access for guardianship.

So what we've seen, and this is particularly pertinent, I think, locally to us on the River Wye, where there is, as I say, it is basically Scotland in the Wye Valley, is that people develop these really, really powerful relationships with their river, with bits of woodland, with bits of land.

Christina Dodwell's work stands out in the genre of travel literature for its blend of adventure, cultural exploration, and personal resilience.

She joined me online from her home near the Wye Valley National Landscape, a beautiful countryside spot on the English-Welsh border.

And now I bring you Christina Dodwell.

Christina Dodwell, thank you very much for joining me today.

You just feel high cloud.

It's because up on the top, it just feels wonderful.

Is that right near the border with England and Wales, this Wye Valley area? Yes.

Yes.

Its well-planned motor garage, just completed, showed that its proprietors recognised the growing importance of this method of touring.

Our run from Hereford up the Wye Valley to the sea we agreed was one of our red-letter days.

We passed through greatly varied scenery from the fertile, level country around Hereford to the rough, broken hills near the river's source, but the view was always picturesque in the highest degree.

The road runs along the edge of the hills, and the glorious valley with its brawling river spread out before us almost the entire day.

The distance from Hereford to Aberystwyth is only 90 miles, yet we occupied the greater part of the day in the trip, and had time permitted, we would gladly have broken the journey at one of the quaint towns along the way.

At many points of vantage we stopped to contemplate the beauty of the scene.

One would have to be a speed maniac indeed to scorch over the Wye Valley road.

Aberystwyth is a seaside resort somewhat similar to Penzance.