| Offa's Dyke - North | |
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Botulism for breakfast, wooing the Welsh, a fine morning to compensate ....
My alarm woke me and I got up quickly, reaching for my jumper. As I picked it up, a family of earwigs fell out of its folds and scampered in a lively manner across the carpet. I don't mind earwigs particularly, but it did make me wonder what else might have paid me a visit during the night. My feet were a little battered from the previous day, so I spent a few minutes applying plasters and they were fine afterwards.
I made my way to Bod and Jo's room. It was as hideous as mine — a fossilised air freshener standing like a twisted rock on top of the wardrobe, a century-old Cup-a-Soup in a cupboard and broken bed-boards. Bod delighted in showing me an old mattress propped against the wall in the corridor outside. It had an ochre and dark brown stain running down its length and looked as if a decomposing corpse had been left on it for several weeks. A tin of paint was propping a fire door open — the only function it had served in this establishment, since there had clearly been no decorating done for a couple of decades. Bod and Jo told me they had slept poorly at first, as the television in the bar directly below their room had bellowed at them for a considerable while.
We went downstairs for our cooked breakfast. I usually look forward to my morning meal, but the environment we were in lent a certain health risk to the whole enterprise. My misgivings deepened when our food was served by a heavily limping woman with lank, greasy hair that hadn't been tied back or put under a hat while she was cooking. I couldn't get the image out of my mind and we were about halfway through the meal when I voiced a particular concern.
"I wonder what her hand hygiene is like."
Bod and Jo groaned.
"Colin!" admonished Jo. "You can think it, but don't say it!"
Bod imitated somebody scratching their crotch, giving voice simultaneously to an authentic rasping sound. I felt a little ill and couldn't finish my runny eggs. We all seemed to be rearranging food on our plates rather than actually eating it.
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We join the Llangollen Canal |
We waited outside the Stanton for our taxi. I had no desire to re-enter the building unless compelled to do so. When the car arrived, it was all I could do not to erupt in a cheer and kiss the driver. Jo took my room key to hand to the manager, but the place was empty and locked up. Jo threw the key onto the bed and we left without a second glance. I would not recommend that you stay at this establishment. In fact, I'd be genuinely disappointed in you if you did — unless you are a committed stain enthusiast, or conducting field work on spores.
We were driven back to Castle Mill, our driver waving cheerio and heading on with our luggage to Hand House in Llandegla. We sorted our rucksacks and set off, crossing the road to walk up a fairly steep lane alongside Gwyringar Wood and up one side of the Ceiriog Valley. It occurred to me as we trooped along that we were entering North Wales properly today. I had my own views on this. The folk around these parts were not especially known for their effusive warmth toward the English. I had recently lost my England cap and been forced to buy a plain one — this now seemed to be a benign act of fate. I wouldn't be inviting unnecessary trouble. In fact, I planned to adopt the hearts-and-minds approach our armed forces were currently employing in Afghanistan. I would carry boiled sweets to distribute to the indigenous children and my first aid kit could readily be used to patch up any local Football Hooligan Warriors. I'd be alright. At the top of the lane we climbed a stile onto pasture, still going uphill. I remember stopping for a moment here. Jo was beside me, Bod a little way behind. The sky was clear and the sun was edging over the canopy of the wood. The air smelled fresh and cool. I had the distinct sense that today was going to be a good one.
"We're not the first to pass here today," Jo observed.
Tracks were visible in the sward. I thought of the Four Walkers. Jo moved off across the pasture, leaving his own prints dragging slightly in the early condensation — a darker, richer green against the opaque sheen of the dewy grass. Bod caught up and they went ahead while I stopped to film. When I joined them, the three of us paused and took in the view. We were at the crown of the valley, flanked by Mars Wood on our right and Warren Wood on our left. The morning was fast becoming a lovely one. Sunny and warm, with the wide sweep of the Cheshire Plain falling away before us. Chirk was still marked by a cheerful puff of white steam from a factory to our right. The top end of the Shropshire Hills peeked around the bulk of Mars Wood. On the horizon, a low, flat palette of grey was spread quite vastly.
"Is that industrial, or is it actual cloud?" Jo asked.
"Cloud," said Bod. He thought for a moment. "If that's industrial, we've got problems."
Jo the sheep, canal-side again, a majestic aqueduct, a town called Trevor ....
We began a leisurely descent down the side of the hill. Jo and I identified flocks of lapwings looping above us, accompanied by starlings. At the bottom, we reached a lane, and Bod and I saw that a herd of sheep was being driven toward us. A sheep trailer appeared to occupy most of the narrow road and left little room to get out of the way. Sheep began spilling past with their characteristic expressions of bovine anxiety, harried by a dedicated sheepdog that appeared, at intervals, to also be attempting to herd the trailer. In the general melee, I noticed something. "Where's Jo?" "He's been herded," said Bod, looking around. "He's going to spend the rest of the holiday as a sheep." The mental image of Jo contentedly grazing with the flock was amusing enough to make me guffaw. He caught up with us as we passed Tyn-y-groes, and we all began wondering about a distinctive building ahead — an old school, or some kind of estate? The map suggested it was Plas Offa. This first hour or so of walking had been, we all agreed, the most pleasurable of the week. Sunny, warm, crossing open pastured fields with huge solitary oaks standing in them as if placed there deliberately as sentinels. It was here, though we didn't know it at the time, that we walked along the line of Offa's Dyke itself for the last time. We never saw the Dyke again after this field. Instead, we descended to a canal crossing on the B5434 and dropped onto the tow-path of the Llangollen Canal. The canal waters were riding high and had overspilled in parts onto the field edges, creating marshy areas. Ducks quacked with self-importance as they sidled up and down the water. The sun was becoming very warm. We walked a mile of this, watching the holiday barge traffic with detached bliss. Bod told me about the aqueduct ahead of us — people came from all over the world just to cross it. He knew this because he had seen a programme about it. We walked past the pretty village of Froncysyllte, where I noticed that many of the properties had for-sale signs in their gardens and that a good number of the gardens were multi-tiered affairs. I found myself wondering whether the owners were getting on in years and finding that their gardening had become inadvertent mountaineering.
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The beginning of the ‘Panorama Walk’ |
At this point the route offered a choice between the official path and a permissive route that would take us over the aqueduct. I knew Bod really wanted to cross it and he had been such a good boy that day, so we took the permissive route. Besides, I had been waiting for it all morning.
I filmed the aqueduct from some distance before we walked towards it. It really is a remarkable piece of work. Completed in 1805, it is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain — a Grade I listed building and a World Heritage Site — carrying the canal one hundred and twenty-six feet above the River Dee. On our side was a railing, but the barge side was open, offering passengers a giddy view chiefly of a middle-distant football pitch and wooded hills. Bod suddenly stopped and began tinkering with a piece of iron work. He announced that he thought he had found the point at which the canal could be drained — the same programme had apparently covered this. He asked whether either of us had a spanner.
We ushered him on.
The village of Trevor was lively with people making the most of the fine weather. I filmed the boats gliding by and the general scene, also taking in some bunches of flowers heaped near the end of the aqueduct. They were arranged all around a particular spot and I was briefly puzzled before the penny dropped and I turned the camera elsewhere. Desperate people sometimes visit the aqueduct for reasons that the original builders would, I'm sure, be saddened at.
We were hungry and thirsty. We stopped for a break, found benches and sat listening to people shouting cheerful comments across to each other from their respective canal boats. We were joined briefly by a couple of unlikely-looking lads on bikes, and I resisted the urge to check my pockets when they departed.
A Panorama Walk, Dinas Bran castle, at the Worlds End, more walking on the moor ....
Working out where to go next was not immediately straightforward. We set off in the wrong direction, were nearly committed to descending a steep lane before Bod's route-finding instincts began twitching, and backtracked to a footbridge and a field we had crossed under the aqueduct. Maps were consulted and we set off correctly.
Jo and I heard what sounded like screams from somewhere behind us — from the direction of Trevor or the canal. It was difficult to determine their nature from a distance, but they didn't sound entirely happy.
We began climbing toward Trevor Hall Wood. A brief drop onto a lane and then upward into the wood itself — dark upright conifers and a narrow earthen track, sunlight stuttering between branches. The wood wasn't large and the trees became lighter-hued deciduous oaks toward its far end. A glade opened to our right containing a solitary cottage set back from a sweep of lawns, still within the wood yet with its own space. A sheep was nibbling the lawn with the conscientious dedication of an organic lawnmower. It occurred to me that this cottage sat on a walking route and probably received more visitors in a day than my own house did in a year.
Through the gate and up a short steep track with more sheep lounging about like workers on a tea break. Jo took a particular liking to one that absolutely refused to move, forcing us to step over it. We continued up a winding tarmac road, then left it suddenly for open moorland. A wall of limestone rock reared up twenty to thirty metres above our heads — not imposing exactly, tending to angle backward or set back from grassy banks, but very impressive. This was only a third of the views on offer.
We all stopped.
To our left was the Dee Valley, the ground falling away as limestone rubble until it blended with grass and ferns and then merged imperceptibly with the emerald richness of the valley itself. The River Dee below was a broad, sparkling ribbon winding down the valley floor. Clumps of trees, lines of hedges, smoothed hillocks — all adding interest and beauty to a scene my greedy eyes drank in. On an imposing hill ahead along the valley, the broken ruins of Dinas Bran castle sprawled above a panorama that must have looked much the same for thousands of years. My guidebook was not exaggerating when it described this as one of the wonders of the entire route, the scenes below hard to overstate. I thought it was the finest sight of the walking week.
We made our way north along the tarmac lane on what is known as the Panorama Walk, moving down the whole length of the valley toward the tired vestiges of the castle. More limestone crags appeared ahead — the Trevor Rocks — as we came alongside the medieval ruins on their hill.
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The other end of the Dee Valley |
The Berwyn Mountains appeared in the distance. I kept falling behind my companions, stopping to film or photograph each new splendid vista as it opened between rows of trees or around the shoulder of Eglwyseg Mountain. I passed a farm undergoing considerable alteration — workers scurrying, scaffolding clanking — and was then taken by surprise by a sudden short but dispiriting detour uphill onto a road. I rejoined the others at the top, and we passed the castle ruins, climbed a shallow grass bank and stopped for lunch at Tan-y-castell.
I became aware, as I ate, that I was sweaty and that I had chosen to sit in a heap of sheep droppings. I felt happy regardless. Sheep trotted past on the lane and bleated from the sward behind us. A raven's distinctive cry drew my attention upward — it was being mobbed by some kind of raptor in a robin's-egg blue sky and managed some impressive aerial manoeuvres, including a full-blooded barrel roll.
"Now it's just showing off," said Jo.
I did some more filming, turning the camera on the castle.
"...and there are the ruins," I stated.
"Was he pointing the camera at us then?" Bod asked Jo.
We finished lunch in gratifying sunshine and turned north. The views west across the valley were now of the Eglwyseg tributary of the Dee and the hills beyond. We passed Rock Farm and another, climbed a road to Bryn Goleu gulley and found ourselves before an impressive slab of limestone. Scree poured forward from the bulk of Eglwyseg Mountain. Signs warned rock climbers not to ascend at certain times of year due to nesting jackdaws and kestrels — which confirmed that rock climbers were indeed making use of this face, presumably during their periodic spells of being death-defying and stupid. With the sheer rock wall, the loose sharp-edged scree and the scattered boulders, the whole place looked like a scene from Planet of the Apes. I kept falling behind as I stopped to film each vista that appeared.
We were working our way across definite scree slope now — dangerous in wet or misty conditions, according to my book. I contemplated the long spill of fractured rock below me and reasoned that if I slipped it would probably be quite some time before I came to rest in a bloodied heap. My boots kicked little shoals of flat stone down the slope as I went, where they joined countless others with a bone-like, curiously musical rattle.
I caught up with Bod and Jo at yet another splendid viewpoint.
"I think we're going to run out of tape before we run out of views," I said, nudging the record button.
The valley below had become shallower and more wooded — luxurious with growth, bunching at its far end. The opposite ridge was flatter now, allowing views of more distant hills.
"How much tape have you got left?" Bod asked.
"Five minutes. But I have another tape."
Bod looked crestfallen.
We crossed three separate areas of scree in total. At one point the path undulated through a line of trees and Bod and Jo had left me behind. I found myself presented with an upper route and a lower one and dithered for several seconds before choosing. This was Offa's Dyke — the correct route was the one that went upward. I put in the fresh tape, managed to put my hand down on a clump of thistles in the process and drove several spines into my fingers, where they would have to stay for now. Jo had waited ahead and we all arrived at World's End together, which is about as dramatic a statement as you can make.
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Bod on the Cyrn-y-Brain Moors |
We began climbing north on the Minera road — a steep haul between conifer plantations and banks of ferns, bringing us eventually alongside the Cyrn-y-Brain moors. Conversation had been mostly absent as we saved our breath, but levelled out enough to talk again as we walked abreast in a trio of grime and sweat-stains. We turned left onto the moor and conversation dried up again.
This was mainly because the boardwalks — two planks wide — required us to go in single file. They made the passage across sodden, low-tough vegetation considerably easier but prevented any kind of conversation. Jo began to lag and was mostly quiet for the rest of the walk. He told us later that he had started to find the day's walking tedious by the time we reached the moor. I appreciated what he meant. It was a little bleak and the forest still lay ahead. The day had certainly seemed long. To me, it would never become boring, but I could see that the cumulative effort was beginning to tell.
Bod and I walked ahead and encountered two walkers coming the opposite way. The lead one greeted us pleasantly. His companion, giving a fleeting impression of curly hair and square-framed glasses, briefly switched on a box-like grin that seemed to contain no actual emotion before extinguishing it. We crossed the moor in fairly quick time and came to rest at the edge of Llandegla Forest. Bod and I had a quick drink and waited for Jo, then we all plunged into a conifer plantation growing on what had formerly also been moorland, descending toward Llandegla. Jo fell behind again and caught up as deciduous trees began to appear. He asked whether we had seen the bear print in the forest mud. A degree of silence greeted this. Jo insisted the print had been enormous and wished he had photographed it. *What dark things lurk in Llandegla Forest.*
Llandegla doesn't have one.
In the course of our fruitless search, however, we came across a sign reading Hand House. We had stumbled upon our accommodation for the night.
Recovery: The wonderful Hand House, Llandegla ....
Hand House stood on a bend in the road beside the village church and graveyard. Children were playing noisily in the street as we walked through the gate and up the front garden of our accommodation.
A youngish man ushered us inside and then disappeared, not to be seen again until the following morning. The lady of the house welcomed us warmly. After the Neanderthal grunting of the previous day's host, we were instantly entranced. She was simply wonderful — telling us about the history of the place as she served us hot drinks and pastries laden with jam and honey. She mentioned that the house was haunted by a ghost visible only to American women, then excused herself to hunt for buttery cookies with which to further beguile us.
Bod murmured that she probably tells American women the ghost can only be seen by sweaty Brummies with chafed thighs.
This lady was eighty years old and had a tendency to lurch about the place, courtesy of a hip held together by pins from a recent operation. After our snack, she made Bod feel comprehensively guilty by showing him his room for the night by crawling up the final flight of stairs on her hands and knees. She also told us we would be given a lift to the most local pub — The Plough — to eat properly and slake our considerable thirsts.
After the Stanton House Inn, Hand House in Llandegla was a fertile valley of love and compassion.
Her husband introduced himself too — a gifted musician with an air of being entirely at peace with himself and the world. Jo and I were sharing a room that was lovely and oozed comfort. Cushions were abundant. We unpacked and Jo took out his phone, so I seized the opportunity to bathe first, sinking blissfully into hot, foam-scented water. I got in and out quickly, mindful that Jo would want his turn before we went out. The oasis was briefly ruined when I applied body spray and discovered tender friction areas on my posterior from the week's walking. I was forced to leap around the bathroom until the ferocity had died down. As an unwelcome postscript, I would have to apply Vaseline liberally to the affected region for the remainder of the week. The miles were finally taking their toll.
We left for The Plough at half past seven. Who should we find inside but the Four Walkers? Happy greetings were exchanged and then we got down to the business of comprehensively bullshitting each other about the day's walking.
The pub was feverishly busy for the first hour and then virtually empty by nine. We ate our meals, sank a few beers and occasionally mixed with the Four Walkers. A young barmaid caught me picking obsessively at my fingers and asked what I was doing. I explained about the thistle spines from the camera-tape change at World's End.
"So — you're being a wuss, then?" she asked, sweetly.
Chastened, I got her to serve me a Laphroaig whisky just before we summoned a taxi home. The taxi cost us a pound each, which was a pleasant surprise, though the driver seemed to take a particular dislike to one of the slightly merry Four Walkers and was rather less warm with him than with the three of us.
Back at Hand House, Jo and I talked for quite a while about religion and our respective beliefs. It was about midnight before we settled down to sleep.
Daily Tweets
Twitter from @BabbleRouser (Jo)
Think we broke the land-speed record yesterday; 10 miles in about 3 hours. Today called for a more strenuous effort
Sep 7th via mobile web
Twitter from @BabbleRouser (Jo)
If we all make it out of this 'hotel' alive, it will be more than a minor miracle!
Sep 7th via mobile web
Twitter from @BabbleRouser (Jo)
Many lovely people in the world; fellow walker ferried us from end of today's walk to our accommodation. Top man!
Sep 7th via mobile web
See Route on ......
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