Day 5: Kington to Knighton

Back on the Dyke again...
Distance: 14 miles
Ascent: 800m
Weather: warm and humid, cloudy, spots of rain early afternoon turned to drizzle. Windy.
Critters: heard cuckoos and skylarks, buzzard having a fight with a crow, fox, squirrels, damselfly.
New flowers: tormantil, mouse-ear hawkweed.

Today we met up again with Offa's Dyke, for the first time since Highbury Wood, 55 miles back. According to the audio info box we passed, King Offa was quite friendly with the people of south Wales so didn't see the need to build the bigger defences that were needed against the more northern tribes. As a result there's not been much evidence of it for the last couple of days, but it was quite impressively deep today near Burfa. I couldn't really get a good picture as the embankment was covered in trees, and rabbit and badger holes. And sheep. There were a lot of sheep, and even more sheep poo.

Leaving Kington we crossed Bradnor Hill, which has what is said to be the highest golf course in Europe, where they have put up a sign welcoming walkers into the club house for refreshments, and on descending into Knighton we passed through another golf course, where there is a sign telling you to stay on the path without a please or thank you. Quite a contrast.

It was raining lightly as we got to Knighton, we had a pot of tea and slices of Bara Brith (Welsh teabread) and coffee & walnut cake at the Tower Gallery, and then visited the Offa's Dyke visitor centre, for all your Offa's Dyke souvenir needs, if you don't mind carrying them. No pottery for us.

We are staying tonight at the George and Dragon, which has very nice rooms, a cosy lounge (with a fire in the stove), good food and enjoying a pint of 'Ow Do.

Day 4: Hay-On-Wye to Kington

Distance: 15.5 miles
Ascent: 700m
Weather: warm, cloudy and humid in the morning, few drops of rain early afternoon, brighter after.
Feet: yellow

After posting yesterday's entry, and our thoughts were turning to sleep, a chap came and plugged in his electric guitar and started tuning up, right next to our table...and right underneath our room. Thankfully the music didn't go on too late and we had a good night.

After breakfast and rolls for lunch bought, we set off along the riverside, passed yurt city being set up for the festival goers. We crossed a pretty field filled with buttercups, after which our shoes were looking very yellow indeed. Here we spotted a fieldfare, before entering a pleasant shady wood of flowering horse chestnut trees, beech, ash, sycamore and hazel which was filled with birds and wildflowers, including (and yes, I have just spent quite a long time looking some of these these up) bluebells, bugle, mouse-ear (or stitchwort?), campions, cranesbill, yellow archangel, forget-me-not, yellow pimpernell and foxgloves. After a bit the wood became coniferous with no undergrowth at all - just fallen twigs, needles and pine cones.

Down a muddy track into the village of Newchurch and we had a rest stop at St Mary's church which does refreshments for a donation, and a cute little dog that begs while you eat them.

A bit later on we had a tea stop at The Royal Oak pub in Gladeston which has a nice beer garden.

The path then crosses over Hergest Ridge (426m) which is a heathy moor with wide grassy paths and patches of gorse. Skylarks were singing overhead and we saw yellowhammers and stonechats. In the distance we could see there was quite a lot of weather happening (and later we heard that they'd had very heavy rain for an hour somewhere about 5 miles away) but the wind was at our backs keeping the weather ahead of us.

At the top of the hill was a grove of monkey puzzle trees and an information sign telling of the Whetstone, a big rock that the drovers would use as a table and legend has it goes down to the town for a drink on a night. It must have started early today because it wasn't there that we could see.

Day 3: Pandy to Hay-On-Wye

Distance: 16.5 miles
Ascent: about 700m
Weather: warm and sunny, cloudier than of late
Squirrels: none!
Buzzards masquerading as owls: one

After climbing up a fairly steep hill first thing, including a bit through a pretty hollow way, most of today's walk was along an 11 mile ridge with views of England to the right and Wales to our left. We went over the highest point on the entire Offa's Dyke Path today, 706m, at some unnamed spot marked by a stick.

The path was clear and rocky through open moorland, where we met lots of sheep (Welsh mountain sheep and Swaledales), lots of shaggy Welsh ponies and small orangey-brown butterflies - or more probably moths (apologies to my Mum but I can't identify more than a couple butterflies or moths and they don't usually sit still long enough to have their picture taken.)

The map shows several bogs along the route, and while there were small pools to the sides, today the path was dry and dusty.

We decided not to take the detour down to see Lanthony Priory, it's only a mile off the path, but that mile looked blumming steep. So we viewed it from afar, taking advantage of the x20 zoom on my camera. I also had a play with the panorama function, which was fun, but we'll have to wait till we get home to see how clear the resulting photos are.

Eventually the ridge comes to an end at Hay's Bluff (677m) and the path takes a steep but clear and easy path down the a road, where there is a small stone circle allegedly, although it looked more like three random stones on some lumpy ground to me.

The path down to Hay went over a lovely grassy meadow (easy on the aching feet and where we saw another red kite, this one I got a photo of) and down into town. The literary festival starts in a couple of days, so there is a really party feel to the town. We are staying at Kilvert's Hotel, which has very nice showers, and does a nice ale or two.

Day Two: Monmouth to Pandy

Distance: 18.5 miles (some of them definitely country miles)
Ascent: 500m
Weather: hot, hot ,hot (again)
Squirrels: about three (one of which was eating a cheese and pickle sandwich)
Buzzards: loads, there were about 8 circling overhead at one point.

Another warm night, but we slept well after yesterday's exercise and had a decent breakfast before setting off about 9 o'clock, stopping to buy lunch at M&S (going up in the world here.)

The path heads out of Monmouth town over an old fortified bridge with gatehouse towers and then through posh suburbs out into pretty fields lined with trees and flowers. The path wanders through an oldy-worldy named Kingswood for about a mile or so and then out onto more fields, over little rolling hills.

Fields were a big part of today's walk, mostly pasture, corn, oilseed rape and a newly furrowed potato field which we couldn't quite bring ourselves to walk across the middle of. A couple of fields had some rather giddy cows in them running around - thankfully keeping their distance - while the vultures buzzards circled overhead. There are a lot of buzzards around here, and we spotted another bird of prey which had much pointier wings with white patches and a forked tail - just identified as a red kite! We also saw some very small blue butterflies, a black butterfly, dragonflies and a funny coloured beetle. Between the fields were country lanes with high hedgerows and not a lot of breeze.

We had quite a long lunch stop at White Castle where they have picnic tables and Bluetooth (as there was nothing much doing in Llantillio Llancrosenny, the pub is now someone's house) then explored the battlements and keep, before heading off down the lane.

The afternoon brought more fields, more sheep, more cows, more flowers and more lanes, and more rolling hills. Also, there was a big orchard of cider apples, which may have influenced Rob's drinking choice tonight. We went through Llangattock Lingoed where the pub (The Hunter's Moon) is closed on Mondays.

Eventually we dropped down into Pandy and walked along the banks of a pretty river to the Allt Yr Ynys Hotel (quite posh but very disappointing shower) where we have been well fed and are now ensconced in a lounge with cider (Rob) and Carlsberg (me).

Offa's Dyke Day One: Chepstow to Monmouth

...or as it shall be henceforth known: Day of the Squirrel...

Distance: 19.5 miles
Ascent: 800m
Weather: hot, hot, hot
Squirrels: thousands of 'em
Feet: dusty

Didn't sleep too well last night, what with the heat, the rock hard pillows, a very vocal cat and an unidentified high pitched humming noise.

In the morning, we had a big, hearty breakfast, and overheard all the complex comings and goings and requests of the other guests, not helped by the fact the waitress may well have been Mrs Overall's elder sister.
We set off at 9am, when it was quite warm enough already thank you, and it got steadily warmer throughout the day. Thankfully much of days route was under trees, in the Forest of Dean heading up the Wye Valley. We took a detour down to Tintern Abbey and had a huge cream tea at the Abbey Mill cafe, where the waitress here was very territorial about the toilets, interrogating everyone as to whether they were patrons of the cafe or not, her conversation with Rob went thus:
Can you tell me where the toilets are please?
Are you a customer of the cafe?
Yes.
Are you sure?
Yes, you've just brought us our cakes...
Hmm.

After scoffing obscene amounts of cake and jam and cream, we visited the very impressive abbey (cheapest bottled water in the village!) and then headed back to the Offa's Dyke path, we decided to follow the slightly longer but simpler and lower path along the riverside rather than heading up over the hill to Bigsweir. This was a lovely path under the trees, lined with wild flowers, and then headed out into the sunshine for the path to Bigsweir. It was hot. I thought it might be about to cloud over a bit, but it didn't. There might have been a bit of huffing, and possibly some whinging about the heat from here on.

From Bigweir, we walked up the road a bit and stopped at a handy picnic table for lunch. Then it was into the excellently named Quickentree Wood where we started counting squirrels, and later lost count somewhere between 25 and 30... at one point there were about six of them running about between the trees.

The path followed the hillside, pretty much on the Dyke and then out on to more open fields along the edge of the woods and into Highbury Woods which whad a nice old feeling. There was a steep descent into Redbrook where we stopped at the Bell Inn for a shandy. Our day's walk not over, we had a not insignificant 250m hill to walk over, with some very woolly sheep which looked like they were overheating in the sunshine, and some bunnies.

The path comes into Monmouth town centre, where we are staying at the Punch House - which is very old and interesting, with very small doors, oak beams and a big old fireplace in the room. Everything washed, including us, we are now in the Mexican restaurant with margueritas and Sol.

Offa's Dyke Day Zero: Sedbury Cliffs, Chepstow

Distance walked: about 8 miles
OD path: 2 miles
Weather: hot and sunny, nice breeze
Birds of prey seen: kestrels and buzzards
Cows in bogs: about 4
Things temporarily misplaced: the path

Public transport isn't much fun, it would be fine if it weren't for the public, but it got us from Oldham to Chepstow as planned. After dropping our rucksacks off at the Castle View Hotel, we went to visit Chepstow Castle, and admired it's 800 year old doors, fun spiral staircases and battlements. A good opportunity to test out how much wind my hat can take without blowing away.

After the castle, we walked to Sedbury Cliffs and the official start of the Offa's Dyke path. The Dyke begins near Buttington Tump where some very foolhardy people were rolling down the hill in those big human-sized hamster balls. Hopefully they clean them out between turns.

Tomorrow's provisions have been purchased (at Tesco, so much for shopping locally, oops) and we are now at the Three Tuns pub with some local beer - a nice pint of Warrior ale brewed in Tintern (me) and a pint of Butty Bach for Rob, which was nice apparently, despite it's name.

Training Walk

Today's walk was cut short due to it being the final day of the football season. We made it as far as Leesbrook Park and back.

Training walk around Saddleworth

Distance: 20 miles
Ascent: 950m
Weather: bright, bit windy
Critters: at least two deer, curlews, oystercatchers, lapwings, skylarks
The day began with a (relatively) hearty breakfast, with lots of cups of tea as I did the exercises prescribed by my physiotherapist for my frozen shoulder. With exactly two weeks before we set off for Offa's Dyke, I'm hoping that these will help to increase mobility and reduce the pain of sudden movements and stile climbing. We'll see.
So we set off today for a reasonably modest walk, which seemed to get longer as it went along, ending up at a rather unexpected twenty plus miles.
We went through Strinesdale, where I missed a duck photo opportunity due to some camera strap faffing, and then almost missed a couple of deer running away behind us across the path, I saw the second one briefly. About five minutes later we stopped for a snack - after having spent about ten minutes discussing how hungry we both were - and during the handing out of some nuts and raisins, I spotted a deer on the hillside opposite, which obligingly posed to have its picture taken.
From the reservoir we went up to Bishops Park and down the lane into Delph, then up a really steep cobbled path to a lane which leads towards Castleshaw. Here we met an odd fellow who was very proud of living ina field with no gas or electric, and then nearly got run into a wall by a group of ramblers walking in the opposite direction. From the top of the hill, we followed the Pennine Bridleway to Piethorne Reservoir and then a very wet path over to Brushes Clough. Here we should probably have taken the more direct route home, but decided instead to go to the aerials and over the ridge to Ripponden Road and home via Co-Op for dinner supplies.





We do like a bit of bog

Hartsop Above How

Distance: 10 miles
Ascent: 600m
Weather: cloudy start, the rain forecast for lunchtime fell as snow, bright and sunny later on.
Critters: heard a cuckoo, various sheep,including some as yet unidentified black and tan ones, cows (having a kip), a buzzard.

The path from Patterdale along to Hartsop was very busy with a huge noisy horde, who stopped to have a conference (while blocking the gate and generally not being aware of other path users) before they (thankfully) went the other way.

A quick change of plan saw us heading up Deepdale, where eagle-eyed Rob saw a buzzard a very long way away and I managed to take a very blurry photograph of it. We stopped for elevenses while peering at the head of the valley trying to spot potential ways up.

There was a bit of a stream-crossing-wobble over one of Deepdale Beck's tributary, but I made it. We traversed under Mart Crag and up the steep grassy slope to Link Cove and Brink Brow, to reach Hartsop Above How. It started snowing just as we were about half way up and there were flurries on an off for the next couple of hours until we were almost down and the sun came out and it warmed up considerably. Here we met some happy people who asked us if there was a car park down in the valley at the end of the path we were on.

The valley was reached in pretty pasture lands, and we came back long the same track to Patterdale as we'd taken this morning and where again there were noisy people, but also pretty flowers and cute lambs.

Photo gallery from today here.

A Grisedale Round

Wainwrights: Birkhouse Moor, Catstycam, Helvellyn, Nethermost Pike, Dollywagon Pike, St Sunday Crag, Birks, Arnison Crag.
Ticked off: four five
Distance: 13.5 miles
Ascent: 1500m
Duration: 8 hours
Weather: clear and sunny, bit cloudier later
Things seen: lots of people, woman with iPad, some more people.

We set off from Patterdale at about 9:30, collecting our substantial lunch from the village shop (open every day) and headed up the valley, along with some quite big groups of people. The clear path goes up to the Hole in The Wall, but we peeled off to contour round and follow the sheep trod (or old path no longer seeing much use) to the wall and up. And more up, to Birkhouse Moor. As we approached Red Tarn under Helvellyn, we stopped for elevenses and watched the queues of Striding Edgers making their approaches. A brief visit to the top of Catstycam, where it wasn't as windy as expected, and we dropped back down to ascend Swirral Edge. An excellent scramble (mostly one handed) and we were up on Helvellyn. It was very busy. There was a woman taking pictures on her iPad.

Across the tops, where we had lunch looking over the valley at Harrop Tarn and stopping at Dollywagon Pike, as there was some doubt about whether we'd actually been right up to the summit previously (which turned out to be a bloody good thing, as later investigation proved our last excursion up here in 2006 had followed the path skirting around the peak and not up to the top at all), before dropping down to Grisedale Tarn. We followed a narrow path to Deepdale Hause, very clear but steep towards the top, and along to St Sunday Crag. Here a couple asked us what the path was like and where it went before they set off down. Obviously our answer of 'it's alright - a bit scree-y' was sufficient for them.

The rocky ridge path heads over St Sunday Crag and down, where we left the main path to cross the grass towards Birks. We found our own way down the grassy fellside to Arnison Crags, which is very pretty and knobbly. The path meets up with a deer park wall, where a chap asked which hill was Arnison Crag (erm, the one in front of you) and down a rather deceptively knee jarring path down into Patterdale. Here we witnessed some cows stalking some unwary walkers down on a valley track, which was very entertaining.