Total miles: 19.9
Elevation gain: 3,362 ft
Time walking: 10am – 8pm
Miles to date: 458.7
Fourth longest day, second toughest in terms of total elevation gain and the muddiest by far! No wonder my feet and legs are aching now!
The weather wasn’t set to be great this morning but thankfully it wasn’t pouring with rain. Very blustery which I think kept the worst of the rain away and left me with drizzly showers rather than heavy downpours. I started off in a jumper for the first time this trip (yesterday was very muggy, today was pretty fresh with the wind!), although it soon came off once I’d warmed up climbing up to the Llanymynech Rocks nature reserve and former quarry. Walking around the skirts of the old quarry rock faces was very pretty, lots of dramatic cliffs and beautiful wild flowers, with old quarry relics dotted about like limekilns and brake drums. There were views back out across the Severn plain to the Breidden Hills and up to the Beacon Ring of a few days ago.
After crossing back into Wales the path headed around the edge of the cliffs and eventually dropped steeply down the western edge and despite only being a couple of miles in my legs were feeling it already. My knees were giving me a bit of pain on the steep downhill and I had a horrible feeling it was going to be a looong day! I tried to stay positive though and told myself it was just my body warming back up after my rest day!
At the bottom of the hill I made the first waterproofs-on stop, having stuck out the first drizzly shower but not trusting my luck with a second. Preoccupied with rearranging my jacket comfortably I missed a turning and ended up wandering quarter of a mile out of my way before realising that something wasn’t quite right. Sigh! When I got back to the right spot, 20m from where I’d put my waterproofs on, I could have taken them off again, typically, but soldiered on for another half a mile before giving in halfway up the next hill!
The rain was constantly threatening all morning and I had several drizzle showers, but having already stopped three times in three miles I was risking getting grumpy at my slow progress so I opted just to get wet instead! It turned out to be the right decision as none of the showers really came to anything.
Up on the second hill, Moelydd, (summited with the assistance of jelly babies) there was a topograph naming all the hills I could see. Sadly I couldn’t actually see all that many today, but apparently Snowdon was only 44 miles away! It was very windy up there though, and I was semi-convinced I was actually going to get blown off the ridge!
Just outside the village of Trefonen (with another closed-at-lunchtime pub), 7 miles in, I stopped to rest my feet and have a protein shake, and I reflected on my attitude towards the 7 miles I’d walked. There was part of me that was impatient that I’d only covered 7 miles so far, and then another part reminded me that 7 miles is in itself a decent walk and the fact that I can walk 7 miles just like that (carrying a 20kg pack) is quite amazing! So I tried to stop berating myself for my slowness and tried to celebrate what I had achieved instead. Not always easy, and I do have to remind myself sometimes that I’m supposed to be enjoying the journey, not just the getting there!
Rejoining Offa’s Dyke itself for the first time today the path dropped down towards Candy Woods which rose up steeply on the other side. Every step down the hill made the next hill to climb look bigger and bigger! It was a pretty walk up through the woods though, although fairly dark because it’s quite conifer-heavy, and up to the old Oswestry Racecourse on top of the hill fort. The views hinted at by the 325m height of the fort were mainly obscured, either by trees or by the drizzle sweeping over that particular section of the English countryside, but you did get a sense that they might have been pretty good at some point in the past! Ruins of the former grandstand were small but interesting and with a bit of imagination I could imagine them racing horses up here in times gone by, before travel by train meant horses could be taken to larger racecourses in other parts of the country.
11 miles in at this point, my morale and energy are given a boost by a lovely patch of raspberries and a nice couple who donated some money and stopped to chat for a while. Turns out his parents lived in Castle Cary in Somerset (where I went to secondary school!), small world. They were really sweet and chatting to them put some spring back into my step. Shortly after meeting that couple I was singing the Hokey Cokey to myself (out loud…) when I suddenly hear a cheerful ‘hello’ from the hedge. I jump, and immediately pray that the smiling man sat on the bank didn’t hear my crazy singing! Turns out he is walking Offa’s Dyke in the opposite direction, only the third person I’ve crossed paths with in a week and a half! We chatted for a while until a) the rain started to come again and b) the bulls who had been quietly minding their own business suddenly decided to head our way, rather loudly and rapidly. I waved good bye to the fellow walker and am not ashamed to admit I hoped the bulls would follow him rather than me. Of course they didn’t. They came straight for me…. I made my way as quickly as I could to the edge of the field whilst trying to shoo them off as I went. Once over the safety of the fence I turned to watch them amazed (and mildly terrified) at how quickly and brusquely they approached. I shuddered. Cows!!
A pleasant downhill stretch along a pretty track, improved further by the consumption of a Cadbury’s Boost bar (“a boost of chocolate, caramel and biscuit energy”! Haven’t had one in years!) led down to Craignant, with the knees seeing to have warmed up now, phew, and once again it’s straight back up the other side. The drizzle starts again, slightly heavier this time, but having avoided the waterproofs since I removed them the first time I carried on, figuring a little rain wouldn’t hurt. After about 10 minutes and halfway across an open field, the rain growing steadily heavier, I started to question the wisdom of my oh-sod-the-rain attitude. When I reached some shelter under the trees and passed a group also walking Offa’s Dyke, kitted out head to toe in soggy waterproofs, I finally admitted that this rain shower was less of the short-and-sharp variety and more of the settling-in-for-the-afternoon variety. With a sigh I donned my waterproofs. The rain persisted for a while and even though it didn’t prove to be “in” for the rest of the day I was thoroughly glad of my waterproofs when I came across some sections of firstly knee-height then shoulder-height undergrowth along the path, which would have had me soaked through in seconds!
The path followed the dyke steeply downhill with views out to Chirk, with Chirk Castle sitting grandly atop the hill opposite, and the flat country beyond. The ‘official’ end of today’s section is at the bottom of the hill, by Castle Mill, but I’m pressing on to where I was able to find accommodation, all the way in Cefn-mawr the other side of the famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, halfway through the next section! This meant I had the steep (but not quite as big as the earlier hills) climb up onto the same hill where Chirk Castle sits (which meant I got good views of the back of the castle too!), but it was the last biggie of the day and the views from the top were far-reaching. I’m not exactly sure which part of the country I was looking at – my little Offa’s Dyke OS map book only gives small strips of map and I’m not always very good at looking at a bigger map to find where in the country I am!
This section was easy walking along country roads and as it was starting to get a little late I decided to make a tiny shortcut and head straight down to the canal rather than do the strange little zigzag the official route takes. I soon realised why the official route goes the way it does – my shortcut took me to the wrong side – the towpath-less side – of the canal! Durrrr!! So I had to walk along the main road for a bit, fearing I’d missed the chance of walking over the aqueduct and would have to take the road route (which involved even more descent and ascent!). Thankfully the road meets the canal briefly and from there the towpath runs on both sides of the canal for a stretch. Phew! I happily walked along and soon I saw the aqueduct in front of me, narrow and very very tall, spanning the valley. A canal boat was coming across which was pretty awesome to see, then it was my turn to cross. Pretty nerve wracking, actually! I wouldn’t want to be up there with vertigo or in the wind! The views were great, over to the railway viaduct, back to the old road bridge and down to the fast flowing River Dee. I held onto the railing, even then I kept feeling like I might fall into the canal! The trickiest bit was passing two women and their dogs – someone has to let go to let the other pass!
Making it safely over the aqueduct into Trevor Basin it was only a short walk to my Airbnb for the night. Thank goodness, as my feet are seriously aching now! I am greeted warmly by my hosts with tea and Welsh cakes, and quickly invited to have a glass of wine after my shower. Amazing!
I am now very tired and somehow I don’t think sleeping will be an issue tonight! I should really do some stretching and massaging my feet but I think I’m going to just sleep and I’ll spend some time doing it in the morning. The good news is that the extra few miles today means for a few miles less tomorrow so I don’t need to be in a rush to leave, yay!