Walking With the Wye

 There's a walk going on, lasting about a month, from the source of the River Wye at Plynlimon to where it meets the Severn at Chepstow, and yesterday they reached the Warren in Hay.

The walkers, a different group each day, are passing along a bottle of water from the source of the river like a baton, and there are events at several places along the way like the one on the Warren yesterday.  The Hay Shantymen were there to sing, as well as the new Hay Rebel Climate Choir.  There were swimmers with model ducks on their bathing caps and the Red Rebel Brigade - the people in red flowing robes who appear at Extinction Rebellion protests, and there were bards with poems about the Wye.

So it was a celebratory day for a serious purpose - to demonstrate how polluted the Wye has become as they travel downstream.

Here they are this morning, beside the clothes shop that used to be the HSBC Bank, setting up a stall for the transfer of the water sample to the next group of walkers:

There was a demonstration of the citizen science project they are doing in collaboration with Cardiff University - making simple tests twice a week for a six month period to determine the levels of nitrates and phosphates in the water, and to see how cloudy the water is - the tube is almost invisible in this picture, I'm afraid, but the demonstrator is holding it up!

The form on the desk, as seen above, was to sign up for more information about the Friends of the Upper Wye.  There's also a group of Friends of the River Lugg, which is experiencing similar problems to the Wye.  They are also looking for more citizen scientists to take samples of the Wye and its tributaries.

Over the next few days, the walkers will be covering the route from Hay to Hereford, and there will be a picnic on Castle Green in Hereford on Sunday.