…the walker’s bones
Ted Hughes, ‘Heatwave’
Melt
I woke several times in the night to the sound of owls. I had left the tent flap propped open with my walking pole, partly to try and reduce condensation, and partly for the views of the sunrise to the east. The night was equally lovely, though: a bright moon, quite enough to cast moonshadow, and many stars. There was enough light to see all the way down the silvery valley. Having fallen asleep at about half past eight last night (!) I was awakened properly this morning just after four by a wren singing in the hedge behind me. Not long afterwards an extraordinary chorus started up. Paul later told me it was peacocks down in the valley; the honking was like nothing I had ever heard. The dawn was absolutely beautiful, and I watched the low, fiery line of red, pink and purple lighten and the mists start to evaporate. It took me quite a while to finish the blog post for yesterday because I was simply drinking in the view.
Paul and Julia Murray bought their derelict barn a few decades ago, and restored it lovingly to what to the council now calls “a significant feature in the landscape”. As well as the camping business (impeccably run), they distill fragrance from their lavender field, and sell it on their website and out of a little summer house.
I must return here, and spend a little more time in this valley, because it is truly a place of peace and recuperation. They made me feel very welcome — thank you both!
Straight out of the gate, the route started with a steep uphill pull. The country round here is a maze of hills separated by steep-sided valleys carved out by streams, and the roads snake their way steeply both up and down. On the map there are plenty of those chevrons which indicate a gradient between 14 and 20% (1 in 5). I refreshed myself before, during and after the uphill sections by snacking on huge blackberries at the all-you-can-eat hedgerow breakfast bar. It was mostly up, though, and pretty hard going: even at 9am it was already hot.
Above my head in the middle of the road a spider hung, horizontal and motionless. It had spun its web right across the road — an immense distance for a tiny arachnid. Higher above me as I looked at the spider there were butterflies fluttering high up in the oak branches, and I wondered whether they were the impressive (and apparently aggressive) purple emperors, which live in oak canopies. No way to know without binoculars. Still higher, wheeling in the air, was a young, anxious buzzard, calling incessantly. Three layers of animal life above my head.
The payback for the gain in height (it was only 233m over 4km but I was making slow work and heavy weather of it) were the tremendous views that opened up behind me, of the last of the Herefordshire landscape. A fumey, pastoral dream.
I had walked nearly right across the county and at the top of Stonehouse Hill (pitilessly lacking in shade) I crossed over without ceremony into Wales. My road ran along a ridge line which marked the border
🏴 England on one side
🏴 And Wales on the other
The only sign of the change in nation was that the bins at the end of farm lanes now had Powys CC instead of Herefordshire CC … but I knew the borderline was there.
The first landmark to appear on the horizon was the Spaceguard Centre — a privately-owned observatory situated in this dark sky area, on permanent lookout for asteroids and comets which might impact earth. My father took Oscar there many years ago as a day out, and we returned a couple of years later with a group of his friends as a birthday treat. It was a fascinating place to visit, but I remember the owner as particularly curmudgeonly, so I tiptoed past so I wouldn’t get shouted at.
This first 10km had been hard, and I had even put on an audiobook to give my mind something else to think about other than the blasted blister developing on my heel. I needed a sit down and a good break — but I still had just enough energy to marvel at a small tortoiseshell on a white buddleia.
The border town of Knighton came into view as I descended, still on the road. Offa’s Dyke and the Glyndŵr Way cross here, and it was here then that my route was to cross the path of the End to End walk that Stephen and I did in 2019.
It grew cooler and shadier as I lost height, and I appreciated the protection from the sun afforded by the ancient oaks.
Kington was baking though, and I pretty much fell into the Horse and Jockey pub, and spent a couple of hours there letting the heat dissipate from my feet and brain, rehydrating, and feeding myself up on fabulous roast tomato soup and a fish cake. The locals propping up the bar were a hilarious Greek chorus — better than the telly.
I sent a photo of the pub’s inglenook seats to the family group chat. Almost immediately someone asked ‘was that where we played Go Fish?’
They’d remembered because as it turned out, the ceiling of the inglenook is a mirror, and we discovered that Stephen had been using it to look at everyone’s cards! This was one of two particularly fine mirrors I encountered today.
With great reluctance and little enthusiasm I put my socks back on, this time experimenting by putting one of my gel pads over the top of the blister. I do think it made quite a bit of difference to the afternoon’s walking. It’s not excruciatingly painful, it is just annoying that it keeps happening, seemingly as a result of the new footbeds.
Apart from getting lunch, I needed to stock up with supper, breakfast and snacks for the next day, because there wasn’t anywhere to eat in the little village of Llangunllo where I was to end the day’ walk. This has been one of the trickiest accommodations to sort: I had asked secretary of the village hall whether I could pitch my tent on the grass and use the loos inside, but unfortunately, the secretary fed back to me that the whole committee felt that this was a very unusual request, and their insurance would not cover it. I phoned the village pub then: I knew the Greyhound would be closed, and their advertised camping spot was just a hard standing for camper vans, but I wondered whether they knew of anywhere else I could stay. The publican immediately offered me to pitch my tent in the beer garden and use their outside loos. All for free — extremely kind.
The Knighton Co-op (entrance bizarrely inside the petrol station and opening up like a Tardis inside and behind the garage) was very well stocked with hummus and guacamole and carrot batons, and I figured they would make a reasonable supper. I buried it all in the middle of my rucksack, hoping that all the clothes ane camping stuff would act as some insulation to keep the food cool for the next 10 km.
My route was to follow the Glyndŵr Way, but first I had a little pilgrimage to make, to a bench where Stephen and I sat and ate ice creams on our End to End walk. I found it, next to a little stream that is a tributary of the river Lugg which apparently I am still loosely following. I took off my pack and sat in the sun eating an ice cream I had bought in the Co-op for the purpose.
Then I couldn’t put off the moment any longer: I had another 10 km to go, and it was time to get back on the road. Kington is a picturesque little place; it would have been nice to have had a meander up to the clocktower, for example, but it was just too hot, and I had a lot of climb coming up.
The heat felt immense. The Glyndŵr Way takes a series of little alleys and back streets to climb out of town, and on the step of one house someone had amassed a collection of bones. Probably of trail walkers who had collapsed of heat exhaustion.
Further along the inhabitants of Hotch Potch Cottage had left out two washing-up bowls full of help-yourself apples. I gratefully did, murmuring thanks to the unknown benefactor and feeling revived by the first bite.
I had been looking forward to this moment: the end of two and a half days of almost exclusively roadwalking. The Glyndŵr Way was to be a field and track route for the rest of the day, and I looked out over the sheep field with relish.
I took it steady, making the most of patches of shade to rest a bit and enjoy the views of the hillsides on the other side of the valleys.
The character of the land has changed and it definitely doesn’t feel like England any more. There are ancient field maples which seem to have provided shade for the hill farmers’ sheep for hundreds of years.
The path skirted the edge of an open bracken-covered hillside, the sun beating down, and I had to watch my step on a number of buried sheep paths which concealed treacherous potholes.
I was grateful for every patch of shade — although the toll to be paid for one shaded path was one lash from a stinging nettle in an overgrown patch leading up to it. I went very slowly, using my poles as best I could to move them out of the way. It was too hot to contemplate trousers instead of shorts and I wondered whether the former were to have a free ride in my rucksack.
The contour around the field came to an end as all good things must, and the next steep climbing section, from 230m to 392m, presented itself. Fore-warned, I took a good slug of water to drink, availed myself of a handy blackberry patch at the bottom of the hill, and screwed my new birthday-present wireless headphones into my ear to listen to my audiobook.
It was now the hottest part of the day, at least 26°, but I think that temperature was in the valleys. I made sure to stop and get water on board, using shade as an excuse to appreciate the views, and telling myself that every step was taking me further towards the end of the climb.
And by the time I got to the top it felt like the sun had just started to lose its power. There were terrific views in all directions, and a very slight breeze.
Although I was listening to the audiobook (mainly because O’Farrell’s Hamnet is a cracking novel, but also slightly because I had run out of water and wanted to distract myself from the fact), I kept my attention on the track, and the views. This was terrific walking, and very lovely: the light on the contoured fields looking west to where the sun had started to dip,
and east to a harder, metallic palette of colours.
The path was very well signposted, sometimes with the little badge
And sometimes with fingerposts.
At times the path felt very well trodden, and at others times somewhat abandoned and overgrown. I even stopped to put on my long trousers at one point, as it would’ve been a literal impossibility to have battled my way past the gorse and nettles and whips of wild rose without shredding and lacerating my legs, as the wide fields gave way to enclosed tracks. Going was very slow in these sections.
The views were still delicious, though,
and in the less overgrown, more grassy unimproved patches my feet scattered craneflies with all most every step, and delicate harebells punctuated the lines of wire box fencing.
Once over the very last merciless hill of the day, the path dropped me very rapidly down through a pretty wood, a shady contrast to the open hillsides. Here, spiralling pairs of speckled wood butterflies replaced the many wall browns which had colonised the upland tracks.
Down the path led, through a couple of hayfields. The sun was warm now, rather than hot, and cast longer, lazier shadows.
Finally at the bottom of the hill at the outskirts to the village, I met again the river Lugg, which I have followed since my first day. I made a mental note to check on my map whether this is the last time I will walk alongside it.
I passed the unfriendly gate of the village hall on my way into the village of Llangunllo, and tsked to myself at the jobs-worthiness of the hall committee.
But I was more than grateful to arrive at the Greyhound. It was a much nicer place to stay: a lovely couple had just parked the campervan on the hardstanding, and offered me a hugely appreciated cup of tea. Keith and Isabel and I sat for ages, chatting over the genial beverage: they are both retired teachers, living their best life , and it was such a lovely end to the day to find some good company rather than being lonely in a beer garden all on my own!
And in the loos I found the other interesting mirror of the day, reminding me that I was properly in Wales now!
Walking The Landscape 