18
We just got back
from five nights away doing Offa's dyke. I took sone notes on paper with a
pencil (so retro) each day to remember what happened. Honestly the majority of
what happened was walking. Lots of walking. But there were other things too.
On the first day out
we drove to the home of James and Julianne and their three kids Edward (21),
Amy (19), and Tom (16). James is the child of a university friend of my
granny's, and Jeff and Lise stayed with them 20 years ago. James and Julianne
stayed with my parents to do some backpacking in Victoria awhile ago.
Basically, they're old friends and I met them when I was a baby briefly.
They live on a
commons, with an almost impossible to find driveway. Apparently even people who
have been there before find it hard to locate. It's an unmarked driveway coming
off a fast road, so it's easy to miss. We drove past and had to turn back. The commons
they live on is beautiful, we did a bit of a walk round it with them. Picture
Christopher Robin and the hundred acre wood, with more fields and bracken. Tons
of bracken. We walked past The Gospel Oak, an oak that is something like 400
years old. The commons council fenced it off and put up a temporary
hand-written sign saying enter at own risk (and risk of falling branches with
many crossed out spelling errors. It was a quaint sign).
We had a barbecue
late lunch with them when we got there, before the walk. They are all really
cool people, with a family dynamic similar to our's. Amy and I talked a lot
about Universities. She's studying marine biology somewhere remote in Cornwall
I think, and hoping to get a year exchange to Uvic the year after next. It
would be neat to see her there. It may or may not happen. After the walk we
played cards. Heart attack then two separate games of Oh Hell. They also love
cards as a family, so another similarity there. Got some injuries playing heart
attack, pretty typical. Dinner was stuff from the fridge plus yummy cheeses and
such, all were happy. Then off to the suite in the garden for bed. It's a very
nice separate mini house, with a bathroom and everything. Very nice and cozy.
Tobin got the small couch, Lise and Jeff on the bed, Julias and I on the floor.
Oh yeah, and the Hutchinson's had one excited young dog named Esmee, one shy
calico garden cat that was not very good at hiding, and one lonely hen. Thought
that was important.
The next morning we
had breakfast at the crack of 8am, then off to Knighton to park the car at the
Offa's Dyke centre. We took the bus to Kington, and started to walk the
footpath known as Offa's Dyke. Everyone (on that first day) had big backpacks,
all five of us carrying tents and clothes and gear and food. It was very nice,
walking on a small footpath in the borderlands of England and Wales. There were
many sheep, nettles, bracken, and lots of wind that first day. I was wearing
shorts so nettles made a bit of a challenge for me in some parts, stepping very
carefully around. At about 4pm, we stopped at the edge of a sheep field near a
farm and a B-road. Jeff was having issues with shoes, Tobin was pooped, Lise
maybe had pack issues, Julias was tired. I was fine and really wanted to keep
going. There was a bit of discord as we talked about what to do next, and
eventually I saw we would probably not be continuing that day. After a bit of
trouble finding a taxi, Jeff finally found one lady who was available to come
pick us up and drove us into Kington to the campsite there for the night. She
was super nice, and agreed to come back to the campsite at 11am the next
morning to take whoever wanted to walk that day (well, hike, but here everyone
calls them "walkers" not "hikers"). The campsite in Kington
was really nice; right next to a river and lots of flat green grass space.
There were lots of caravans (camper trailers) set up, some of which looked like
permanent residences. There were some with gardens and plants and cats, and one
with two yappy dogs that barked every time we walked past them to the toilet
block. There were two other walkers there, who set up around the same time as
us but left in the morning before the lady came round to collect money (cheeky!
And quite possibly very clever). They were two young men who seemed to be
walking hardcore-mode. We found out later that they were indeed walking the
entire 177 miles of Offa's dyke and were averaging 14 miles a day, so, yeah,
pretty hardcore. That night we had a pub meal in Kington at The Swan. I love
British pubs. Good food, casual atmosphere, very local, and usually a family
operation. I ate a steak from the butcher's across the street. Our waiter was
the daughter of the chef. The food was fantastic. Notable things from this day:
Small balls of cocoa and banana stuff. Snack food. We christened them
"truffle nuggets". It's very fun to say.
The next morning we
walked into the tiny town of Kington (not to be confused with Knighton- where
we parked our car halfway along our planned four-day walking route) and got
breakfast from the Spar and a local grocer's and fish market (have I mentioned
the quaint atmosphere of all these tiny British towns? They're pretty
neat). Lise and I got taxied to the same
place we left off the night before (with considerably less weight in our packs)
and Jeff and Julias and Tobin took their time about town enjoying the local
market day and meat pies, before catching a bus to Knighton and setting up camp
at a farm with camping just outside of town and right on the path.
Lise and I walked
16km (10 miles) to Knighton to meet them, which took about 5 hours. It was a
bit of a long walk, I think a bit longer than a comfortable day of progress,
but it was alright. And we saw sone very nice views of the countryside. At this
point I was getting very used to sheep and sheep poo. Mostly the sheep poo,
actually. It was everywhere and unavoidable. But it was still a nice walk,
despite very tired feet. We had lunch while walking: gruyère and corn thins.
That evening we had another pub meal at a free house called the George and
Dragon. It is 400 years old, and very cool. It's the local favourite, so it was
crammed with people on the Friday night we were there. The doors were very
short, with signs on them saying "Duck or Grouse".
The farm we stayed
at near Knighton was very nice. The grass was long and cushy, perfect for us
with our small not-so-cushy Z-rests and small mats. The same intense hiker guys
from Kington camped there and left early again. We didn't see them after that day.
This day was our rest day, so we explored Knighton and rested and ate food. We
played a game where you give someone three things, and they have to make a
story out of them. I gave Julias three things, and his story was "Mr Rock
wants to go to sea", but he left out the antelope so I said "what, we
infer the antelope?" or something. Coming soon to a T-shirt retailer near
you:
We had lunch at the
George and Dragon. Jacket potatoes, yum. We visited a closing charity shop with
some amazing vintage records that I seriously considering purchasing despite
the fact that we do not own a LP player and we are on a different continent. The
album art was pretty great and very 80's and a bit creepy at times. Tobin also found a steam punk top hat and goggles
that he almost bought for £40. And they had some other great hats there as
well. And a real shell from 1945 for £20.
We tried to eat at
the Horse and Jockey for dinner, another pub in town, but they were all booked
up because it was Saturday night. The George and Dragon was full as well, so
the boys got pizza and kebabs and Lise and I went to the local supermarket and got
weird extruded corn rectangles and pre-made cold meat and tomato stuff. Good
times. Tobin met some kids his age at the park afterward, which was nice
because he hasn’t had the chance to play with a lot of kids so far on this
trip.
The next morning I
had yogurt I had stashed the night before under a tree so it would keep cool
for breakfast. It worked surprisingly well. Jeff, Julias, and I walked from
Knighton to Clun, about 10.5km. Took us about five hours, but we had a nice
long stop for lunch and took our time walking and enjoying the countryside. And
enjoying sticking burrs to each other's clothing. Lise and Tobin drove to Clun
with our car and set up camping stuff at the hostel+ camping there. Clun was
even tinier than Knighton, but impossible to find your way through because the
two and a half town streets are skinny as heck and all look the same. We took
the wrong turn out of town twice after Lise came to pick us up from the path.
Oh yeah: Offa's dyke is 1300 years old and most of the path is walking along
the top of it. Very cool.
The hostel used to
be an old mill. Basically it was a museum that happened to also be a hostel.
The people there were super nice, including the two volunteers. There was
another family there with a kid about Tobin's age, so they played a bunch
together with blocks and a mini pool table. Dinner that night was pasta and
pork and beef and sauce and cheese and salad, cooked in the roomer's kitchen
because the camper's kitchen was overwhelmed. Normally they had the rooms full
with a couple of tents, but when we were there a wedding reception group had
just moved out of all the rooms and there was an unusually large amount of
campers (7 ish tents). So we used the bigger kitchen. Lise, Julias, and I
played cards in the evening.
Next day Lise and I
walked the last of our planned walking, 11.8km to near Montgomery. Took us
about 5 and a half hours. There was a crazy amount of climbing down and up
valleys. The contour lines on the map were so close together it looked like a
solid thick red line. The worst was the valley of Churchtown, a town with two
houses and a church at the bottom of a steep steep valley. There were lots of
chickens in Churchtown, as well as one pony that completely ignored us. We took
a quick peek in the church. It was very small and very quiet. We didn't see a
soul in town. That one valley probably took about an hour to climb down and up.
The worst was going down the steep forested slope on one side and seeing a thin
dirt path in full sun going vertically up the slope across the valley, and
praying that wasn't Offa's Dyke path. But it was. It absolutely was. My
strategy involved taking breaks between going as fast as I could up one section
of [cliff], while Lise took the slow and steady approach of one foot in front
of the other, don't stop. I knew I had a yummy apple oat bar in my bag that
motivated me to keep going. It was a brutal walk, that Monday. By far the most
taxing. The last bit of that day's walk was through very pleasant fields with
cows and English forests on completely flat terrain, but by that point we were
absolutely knackered. There were people out for strolls with their khakis and
flip flops. I felt a bit like a barbarian charging past them with crazy hair
covered in sheep and cow poo with my giant pack. The juxtaposition between my
state of mind and my surroundings was tantalizing.
Jeff and the boys
spent the day exploring the ruins of Clun castle and eating at a lovely
restaurant in Clun, before driving the 20 min to come pick Lise and myself up.
Juxtaposition indeed.
We spent the rest of
yesterday (Monday) getting back to Cardiff. I had a shower and felt a bit more
civilized. Today has been spent resting and watching the olympics and checking
email and Facebook and Twitter and Imgur and Snapchat and YouTube. And I went
to the grocery store. We have all re discovered how small this apartment is,
and also the fridge was acting up so there were a bunch of terrible-smelling
things to throw out. And the fridge just happens to be in the room I'm sleeping
in. But it's alright because I fell asleep the moment I lay down and slept for
12 hours. I was very tired. Today we had pork chops and green beans and salad
for dinner. And lemon cake and gluten free Jaffa cakes and raspberries and
clotted cream. And a bag of Kettle crisps.
The half way point of the entire Offa's Dyke trail:
The terrible climb out of the valley of Churchtown:
