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.
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