Thursday 3 August 2017
Sedbury to Tintern
Distance: 9 miles
Start: 8:30am
Finish: 3:30pm
Weather: Windy, with periods of rain and sun
It transpires that the Offa's Dyke Path passes directly opposite the house where I Airbnb'd last night. (I had a great stay, by the way. My hosts took me with them to this old-timey cinema in Cinderford to see Valerian.) I made a college try to get to the proper start of the path at Sedbury Cliffs, but the path was so muddy in places that I quickly gave that up and just started heading north.
I made my way through Sedbury and walked through and around several pastures and fields. After skirting around the settlement of Woodcroft, the path got onto Forestry Commission land, and it was a lot of walking through the woods for the rest of the day. Inevitably, whenever I got to a place with views, the misty rain closed in and I couldn't see anything! But I did manage to get a couple of decent pics of the abbey from the Devil's Pulpit, a funky rock formation which commands some pretty epic views on a clear day.
Shortly after the Pulpit, I took a side trail down to Tintern. This turned out to be the most arduous part of the whole day. Rocky and incredibly muddy underfoot, it was slow going, not to mention very hard on my feet. I met a lot of people coming up from Tintern to see the Devil's Pulpit and the views from there, and I did not envy them the climb. But at long last I got to Tintern, crossed over to the Welsh side of the Wye, and promptly bolted down two pints of water and a mac and cheese with leeks ( I MUST be in Wales) at the Abbey Mill Cafe before shambling up the road to my B&B.
Some thoughts:
1) While better than the South West Coast Path, this path is not as well-waymarked as one could wish for. I took a wrong turn or otherwise lost the path on no fewer than three occasions, due to signposts that were badly placed, overgrown with vegetation, or otherwise hard to see.
2) It's easy to tell when I'm on the Welsh side of the border: all the signs are bilingual!
3) I really should pay more attention to the state of my water canteens. One of them smelled really bad when I opened it up this morning. Turns out it had some lemon bits in it that were on the turn. Blech!
Went and looked at Tintern Abbey this evening. Shame I didn't get here early enough to go in, but it was very pretty in the setting sun.
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Friday 4 August 2017
Tintern to Monmouth
Distance: 10 miles
Start: 9:20am
Finish: 5:00pm
Weather: Warm, humid, and mostly sunny with occasional drizzle
I mostly followed the Wye River today, availing myself of the Wye Valley Walk and the ODP's low route. It was straightforward walking up the valley for the most part. I was even able to turn my iPod on today, for the first time on this walk. I made my way through Brockweir, Bigsweir (where I acquired my own personal halo of gnats which followed me for much of the day), Whitebrook, Penallt, and Redbrook before reaching Monmouth. I very nearly gave up at Redbrook because of some very painful chafing on my thighs, but I pressed on. And I'm glad I did, because a little way out of Redbrook I was able to to see Penallt Old Church high on the hill on the opposite bank of the river.
Penallt Old Church is the primary reason why I'm doing this part of the walk. My paternal grandmother's father, Albert Hopkins, and his forebears were from this area. I have a pair of great-great-great-grandparents buried in Penallt's churchyard. My family ties to this area are deep. And walking through this landscape today, I can only imagine how wrenching the move to industrial Warrington must have been. If I lived here, I don't think I'd want to leave.
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Monday 7 August 2017
I spent Saturday morning hanging around Monmouth. There's a minibus service that runs up to Penallt, so I took advantage of it and went up to the church. The church turned out to be a mile and a half from the bus stop, which my chafed legs did not appreciate, but I made it. I found the Charleses' grave, lay down in the grass beside it, and watched the clouds for a while. The last time I was there was in April 2012 with my parents, uncle, and grandmother. The day was drizzly and gray, and the spring leaves were just starting to appear on the trees. This day was incredibly different - warm and sunny, with fluffy white clouds floating overhead and nature bursting with greenery, so much so that I could barely see the river on the valley floor below.
Eventually I called a taxi back to Monmouth (having missed the minibus I'd intended to take back down), and then got a bus to Abergavenny, and another bus toward Llangattock Lingoed, my destination for the night. It was at about this time that Trail Magic struck again. My initial plan had been to get off the bus in Pandy and walk two miles along the ODP to get to Llangattock Lingoed. What I did instead was get off the bus as soon as I saw a road for Llangattock Lingoed...4 miles away...because I'm stupid. But. A very kind woman offered me a lift partway there in her car. We also picked up another woman whose horse-trailer had broken down.
Where my ride let me off was still a bit of a walk from the village proper, but it was all downhill. And the people at the pub where I was staying welcomed me like a long-lost friend. So much so, that I ended up staying for most of the day on Sunday to attend Llangattock Lingoed's annual village fair.
I'm now in Hay-on-Wye, after a lengthy and expensive taxi ride from Llangattock Lingoed because the buses don't run on Sundays around here. Hay-on-Wye is supposed to have the highest concentration of second-hand bookstores in...Britain? Europe? The world? I forget. Exploring the town this morning, I certainly saw a lot of bookstores. I also saw a lot of empty storefronts. And last night when I ventured out to find an ATM, the streets were EMPTY. It was like a ghost town. Granted it was Sunday, but it was still a reasonably fine summer's evening, and not seeing anyone out enjoying it was eerie.
This morning I explored the town some more and made my way down to the river. The Wye has been more or less my constant companion for the last five days, but I'd yet to stick my feet in it. I rectified that on a pretty gravel beach, as various kayakers and canoeists paddled by.
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Tuesday 8 August 2017
Hay-on-Wye to Gladestry
Distance: 10 miles
Start: 9:30am
Finish: 5:30pm
Weather: Cloudy and humid to start, then rainy, then clearing and cooler
This was a fine and varied day of walking. I walked out of Hay-on-Wye along the river before parting company with it for good and traversing a series of livestock pastures. I'm really beginning to dislike walking through pastureland. There's often no discernible path on the ground, and the waymarker at the far end of the field is almost never visible from the near end, so you just have to cross the field in the general direction indicated by the arrow on the waymarker and hope for the best. I managed to stay on the path through sheer dumb luck today.
After the initial series of pastures, I walked a quarter-mile along the highway and then crossed it, and the path started to climb. I was on farm tracks (so along fields rather than across them), and the going was never too steep but always insistently and sweatily uphill. During my first snack break, a couple named Mark and Michelle overtook me. They ended up being my shadows for the next day or so.
When I got going again the farm tracks continued, and the clouds that had been gathering all morning finally unleashed their rain. I walked without a raincoat at first. After the morning's sweat, the rain felt SO GOOD on my skin. But then the rain got harder and harder, so I had to don the rain gear at last.
It was in this downpour that I arrived in the village of Newchurch. Newchurch's main church stocks tea, juice, water, and snacks for passing walkers, which is incredibly kind and was very well-timed today. Mark and Michelle were already in the church, along with a Scot who was walking the other direction. I was contemplating bailing and taking a taxi the rest of the way to Gladestry, and Mark gave me some phone numbers for cabs before he and Michelle set off again.
I lingered in the church a bit longer, and after about 15 more minutes the rain let up. So I decided to push on with the last three and three-quarter miles to Gladestry. And I'm SO GLAD I did. The main challenge of these last few miles is the hill just to the north of Newchurch. It took a while to toil up it, but the going underfoot was, nice, springy grass sward. And the views from the top were awesome. For the first time today I was on open moorland with unobscured views of the Brecon Beacons, and it felt amazing.
The gradual descent into Gladestry was via more pastureland and one short but steep hill that I ended up butt-scooching down, plunging my left hand into a nettle patch in the process. Oww. I caught up with Mark and Michelle at the pub where we're all staying. There are also two gentlemen walking the other direction staying here tonight. Post-walk drinks and dinner were fun!
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Wednesday 9 August 2017
Gladestry to Kington
Distance: 4.5 miles
Start: 9:45am
Finish: 12:10pm
Weather: Cloudy and cool, but dry
Today's walk was over the Hergest Ridge. The climb out of Gladestry was sweaty, but once I got up on the ridge, the walking was a real treat. The views were great, the grass was springy underfoot, the wind was bracing, and I saw wild ponies. I tried to make friends with a curious foal, but its parents quickly made their displeasure known and I hurried along my way.
Mark and Michelle overtook me about halfway to Kington, as we were starting to descend. The descent was gradual and gentle, but became rough on the toes when the track became gravel and then tarmac. I reached the sign for Kington in just under two hours after leaving Gladestry, and Kington proper about 20 minutes after that. I was too early to check in to my B&B, so I went to the pub for a pint, joined a final time by Mark and Michelle, who were continuing on another 8 or 9 miles to Whitton.
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Saturday 12 August 2017
I tried to do the Kington to Knighton leg, I swear I did. August 10 dawned sunny and beautiful. My legs felt good. My B&B in Kington offered to drive my rucksack to Knighton for me, so all I had to carry was a daypack. In short, the day started off promising.
I made an error leaving Kington, overshooting the trail by a wide margin. Fortunately I was able to walk along Mortimer's Way to back to Offa's Dyke. Problem sorted. And then the trail started climbing...and climbing...and climbing. And it was hot. And the flies wouldn't leave me alone. Have I mentioned the flies? Welsh flies love me. They land on me and I have to physically brush them off again - shaking the affected body part doesn't dislodge them.
Eventually I made it up to Kington Golf Course (the highest-elevation golf course in England!) and sat down on a bench to decide whether to continue. A golfer in a cart offered me a lift to the far side of the course, which I accepted. The trail led through a couple more sheep fields and within sight of the actual earthwork dyke itself, which was cool. Then I crested a small rise and saw what the rest of the day had in store: miles and miles of hills, all the way to Knighton.
I turned around, walked back down into Kington, and caught a bus.
Yesterday was low-key. I did laundry, wandered around Knighton, and used the hotel's modest spa to relax some muscles.
Today I'm taking the train up to Carlisle. Hadrian's Wall next!
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