DAY 32: Sodom to Carmel

Today: 22.1 miles
Total so far: 493.7 miles
Percentage Completed: 29.6%

(Click map to enlarge)

I dropped down from Offa's Dyke near the end of the path to enter town via the old railway, now a nature walk.

Prestatyn seen from above looks wonderful, laid out before you. Prestatyn at ground level is another matter; well, it is after you pass the railway line. You leave the 'normal' part of town and the moment you are the other side of the tracks, the nature of the town changes.

I walked along the flat coastal plain to the walk's terminus - a rock set amongst gravel saying that it marked the end of the walk. To the seaward side of the rock was a circular tourist information centre that looked decidedly dead. To the left was a gigantic 'leisure facility' built from greenhouses and factory wriggly tin. To the right; a smaller flat roofed facility, packed full of electronic gambling machines and lit by fluorescent lights with yellowing opal diffusers; only half the tubes working. The noise inside was an indescribable barrage of shoot 'em up games and repetitive phrases bleating to encourage you to play.

The people playing in this unvarnished hell-hole either looked malnourished or incredibly fat. You could find candyfloss, 'slush' and all manner of ghastly grub. It was mind numbingly depressing.

The Offa's Dyke guide prefaces the start to today's walk saying that this last day was anything but an anticlimax: As far as the walking goes, I agree totally. But to end one of Britain's finest National Trails at a hell hole is frankly amazing. What on earth were they thinking?

Perhaps I am being too elitist - after all, a journey through Britain should take everything in and today I saw the lot. But others are looking to the walk as an uplifting experience and to finish it at such a dump is cruel. Offas Dyke is a magnificent walk and I would recommend it to all: Just brace yourself when you finish.

The rest of the walk up to Carmel followed the cycle route and went well with a good pub find at the first village climbing up the hill from the hell-hole.

DAY 31: Llandegla to Sodom

Today: 18.5 miles
Total so far: 471.6 miles
Percentage Completed: 28.2%

(Click map to enlarge)

Another big day today: 1300m of climbing over the Clywydian Hills and 18.5 miles. Needless to say I am at the pub in Bodfari, before the final climb up to Sodom for the B&B. Two nice pints of Abbot are going down smoothly, restoring the circulation to the feet.

I reckon the views would have been stunning today, but as seems to be the norm, I was in mist / haze all day. Right at the end I could see down to the Dee estuary, but the walking was good. I have to admit to being a little tired after our efforts last night at the Crown at Llandegla and some of today's hills were a bit of a trial...

Breakfast this morning was out of this world: Melon with raspberries and strawberries, followed by poached haddock and grilled baby tomatoes on the vine with mushrooms.

That set me up and they sent me off with a corker of a packed lunch, as there was no possibility of fitting a pub in today.

I shall shortly set off to the B&B and sleep the sleep of the dead!

I have just realised, I have been walking for a month!

DAY 30: Froncysyllte to Llandegla

FRIDAY 30th March 2007
(Posted Saturday)
Today: 12.1 miles
Total so far: 453.1 miles
Percentage Completed: 27.1%

(Click map to enlarge)

No phone reception here, so who knows where this will be posted from!

I know, I know: Another lovely day; this must be getting boring reading about how this beardy bloke with a problem belly is having such a good time. I am pretty sure it's not to do with the walking. It's the stopping that counts: Where you stop is crucial in all of this.

Having struggled over the slippery screes under the limestone cliffs, with none of the benefits of views, I decided to have a long stop at World's End (thank you, Theo) As I was finishing lunch on a convenient bench, a walkery chap appeared by magic out of no-where and said "Alan Sloman, I presume!"

Being a crap liar, I had to admit to the sin, and Jeff Pepper introduced himself. It was not quite Livingstone and Stanley, but it came pretty close in my book.

Jeff explained he had started out this morning at six from Stoke and by dint of public transport and a firm determination had tracked me down to World's End. If I was going to look for someone, then World's End would be a good place to start as you can work back from there.

We strolled the rest of the way to Llandegla together and Jeff had explained that he had found my blog from Andy Howell's illustrious pages and had decided it would be a Good Thing (the capitals are important here) to meet up with me.

After spending his entire life in the banking system, Jeff broke away and now spends a few days a week helping out in an outdoor shop. He seems to have life sorted.

We spent a happy hour in my B&B (The Old Rectory - an astonishingly ace place) trying to wade our way through a mountain of home-made cakes and a huge pot of tea surrounded by three greyhounds, a whippet and a wonderful family who are living their dream and who have upped-sticks and moved from Surrey to try to run the best B&B on the walk.

We were then off to the Crown, to meet Pam (running the show), Terry, who was sixty last Saturday and enjoying life building kitchens for John to fit, Jan - who used to look after them all and now has a new job but misses her boys madly, Gerraint (I hope I have spelt that right) who has a pencil behind his ear and is a minor deity, and Dawn who is a PA who wears fishnet stockings and who has a black Lab & a Jack Russell and who walks them every morning and afternoon, works and brings up two children.

John has already done his own LEJOG on a bike, and for the last few years has been walking it with his wife in two week chunks and this year will get to Mankinholes.

Another lovely pub, totally built from the bottom up by its customers; as sure a foundation as one could wish for.

DAY 29: Llanymynech to Froncysyllte

Today: 18 miles
Total so far: 441 miles
Percentage Completed: 26.4%

(Click map to enlarge)

Just 18 miles but with 1100m of ascent, so quite a day. The climbs and descents on Offa's Dyke tend to be of the short sharp shock variety, and they did just that. Still, I made it okay, in enough time to walk over Telford's amazing aqueduct, before doubling back to the B&B.

On the way over to Chirk Castle, I could swear I could see the Pennines in the far north east, still quite a few days away as I am heading north west for the next few days.

With no pubs at lunchtime, it was a workmanlike walking day, but the views are wonderful. I was not sure what to expect from Offa's Dyke, but it is wonderfully crafted walk; no two days are the same and the variety is refreshing. The path is not over-used and so you have good earth and grass beneath your boots rather than the sludge of the more commonly walked National Trails.

It is well way-marked and not overgrown with brambles. The only slight criticism would be the amount of barbed wire that the farmers feel obligated to erect, just to make you feel totally welcome - but that could be said for any part of the English and Welsh countryside (not Scotland though!)

Still having a good time, a slightly easier day tomorrow to look forward to.

If anyone out there wants a swimming pool in their back garden just call my brother (the one with the hair) He's a dab hand at water divining.

DAY 28: Welshpool to Llanymynech: Evening Report

Today: 12.2 miles
Total so far: 423.0 miles
Percentage Completed: 25.3%

(Click map to enlarge)

After the lunchtime pub - a lovely saunter along the looping canal, passing swans nesting on the towpath and passing over an aqueduct, strange in that the canal has a dead end and so no one will be passing over it; a lovely piece of British eccentricity. The sky to the north of me start building to an electric intensity, and the air freshens after the muggy morning as I enter Llanymynech - a tidy little place with school, Post Office and three pubs that I have seen so far.

It starts to rain as I force my rucksack through the narrow front door: Perfect timing after a comfortable day.

That completes the Montgomery plain and the Severn Valley. The guidebook suggests that these past two days might not have been the high spots of Offa's Dyke, but I disagree. The walking has been pastoral and canal walking, when not strewn with rubbish left by towny idiots, is idyllic.

It may be early in the walk to try to understand why some places seem to be so ghastly and why others are so delightful, but my theory so far rests with the sense of scale in a community.

It seems that when you are in a village, ie a small community, everybody knows you and the community forges links with the youngsters to ensure they have enough to do and are valued. It would seem that when you live in a town, you do not have the chance to be known by all, and so older children tend to group together, as they at least form a cohesive group. This would seem to dislocate them from the community at large, and so the trouble starts.

However, with cities, there is so much available that these children are almost spoilt for choice, so the place has a safer feel to it as they are usefully occupied.

So, what is the answer - "When I were young" there were school trips, clubs, scouts, choirs etc: There was never enough time to do it all!

Nowadays, youth groups have dwindled as youth leaders and teachers have ever more paperwork, risk assessments and the like to wade through before any child gets a sniff of adventure and involvement.

Until we dump this bureaucratic crap and just take kids out to do risky stuff and actually succeed at something they never thought they were capable of and learn some self respect, then it can only get worse.

Our risk averse, blame culture is feeding a society that is becoming increasingly divisive towards children. Someone out there, and I don't mean politicians, should stand up and be prepared to denounce the nanny culture with authority, before it gets any worse.

DAY 28 Lunchtime Report

DAY 28: Lunchtime Report
The Golden Lion, Four Crosses

Hello Readers!

It's been a while since I had the luxury of writing a lunchtime report.

Well, I finally have Welshpool out of my system. It was dragging me down even as I was leaving it by the canal path; the filthy, litter and empty plastic bottle strewn towpath a testament to how the people of that awful little place saw themselves and their shabby little lives.

The further I walked away from Welshpool, my morale soared. The clagging mist slowly lifted, and I joined the River Severn as the sunshine slowly cheered everything up.

On the far bank the quarry rumbles away ripping huge chunks of basalt from beneath the hill to finally end up in some roadsurface somehwere. People complain about quarries, but it has been going on for millenia and at the end of the day, the hills are still there.

The pub has been recently taken over by a new husband & wife team - good music, an excellent fresh salad and well kept beers does it for me. It is early in the season for Offa's Dyke walkers, but it is an excellent walker friendly place - especially if you like Blues.

This morning I had breakfast with a team from York University who are being funded to find out that draining the peatbogs is a bad idea. They are spending all their days in the cold and wet on top of some wet windy hill in Wales measuring gas emmisions from pet bogs in drained and undrained conditions. Up to their armpits in freezing bog: I know I enjoy bogs, but I am not sure I could spend each and every day in them.

Huge respect for them!

Old speckled hen and Hancocks HB: Smashing.

DAY 27: Little Brompton Farm to Welshpool

Today: 11.9 miles
Total so far: 410.8 miles
Percentage Completed: 24.6%

(Click map to enlarge)

The guide book raved about the views I would be seeing today, but Wales was having none of it; there was thick mist all day which scuppered everything. So with no views, I plugged through the immediate countryside whistling to the sheep.

Number 30 was a contrary sheep and followed me like a dog at heel for three fields until the stile finished her off. She was lonely, looking for someone to tell her troubles to, but I was not her soul mate. I told her all about Wilkinson and his special ways with sheep, but she bleated back that Wilkinson was a mythical being, a legend handed down ewe to lamb over countless generations and that one day he WILL return to dominate and pleasure the flocks once more. It is written.

I left Thirty alone with her fantasies before cutting down to Forden for an uncomfortable pint in the empty pub with a cheese and ham sandwich for company.

I was soon neck deep in a hot bath at my B&B in Welshpool.

Welshpool: Now here's a place!

“Welshpool”: The name conjures up images of swirling mists over pools beset with wild flowers, crows and buzzards calling overhead. Perhaps some ancient druid singing incantations holding a staff of gnarled old yew, with a flowing white beard.

The reality is somewhat more prosaic. You enter town passing a gypsy encampment with two yobs beating up a good-looking blonde girl at the roadside and ordering her back to the caravan, where there are very large dogs straining against metal chains anchored to something solid (I hoped). The immediate squalor around their home is then transferred to a pudding factory of gigantic proportion (Sidoli's of Shrewsbury - strange, it being Welshpool).

Leaving my B&B for the high spots this evening, the main street is a strange affair - once quite prosperous, the pubs now look like they cater for the young dispossessed, trying to screw the last shillings from track-suited youths with skin problems.

Why has ten years of this government done so little for our future generations? We are now building super-casinos to further rob them of their future, while assuring everyone that everything is fine and dandy and that the 4x4's will be taxed some more.

So that's all right then.

All politicians should be made to visit Welshpool - an outwardly prosperous place, but whose soul is sinking into the River Severn's deepest mud banks.

DAY 26 Knighton to Little Brompton Farm

Today: 15.9 miles
Total so far: 398.9 miles
Percentage Completed: 23.9%

(Click map to enlarge)

The Offa's Dyke handbook says this is the toughest day of the walk. I happily concur. But what a walk! It is described as a switchback - Anquet measures it at about 4,000ft of ascent; but what glorious ascents!

The morning's were in mist and cloud, so the imagination was running riot. The afternoon's ascents were brutally obvious and so well prepared for: I will never forget the tranquillity of Churchtown and it's peaceful graveyard with only a handful of families resting there. The calm was only broken by the pair of crows chasing away the buzzard - an epic of ten minutes' life and death struggle.

I made it in reasonable time to Little Brompton Farm. If ever you have to say in just one B&B in your life, make it this place.

A seventeenth century farmhouse with a timeless welcome. Bob & Gaynor are not in the first flush of youth, and have been welcoming walkers here since before the National Trail was thought of. Sadly, due to their age, they are now trimming the operation down, but they are world famous on Offa's Dyke.

Similar plaudits must go to Helen, who runs the Blue Bell Inn. Helen runs a tight ship. It's not about the beer. It's about the pub and all who sail in her. She has banned four people in the last forty years, and once they are banned: that's it. They never cross the threshold again. She does not have much trouble.

I spent an evening with the local mechanic, who drives the school bus, two sheep farmers and Helen, who drives the whole show. If I had been able to sleep on her floor, I would be there now. An experience of a lifetime. I know - I have said it before, but this walk just gets better and better.

One last bit of astonishingly good news that restored my faith at last with 'government'. My friends Tony & Caroline have at last been given approval to adopt, when the system has seemingly spent a lifetime putting obstacles in the way of the two most potentially perfect parents a child could wish for. With news like this, and the day I have just experienced, I know that there really must be a force out there for fighting for good.

Offa's Dyke Visitor Centre

DAY 25: Rest Day, Offa's Dyke Centre

I visited the Offa's Dyke Centre in Knighton this afternoon. I am sure a lot of money has been spent on it and to some extent, it does the job pretty well. But it is sliding down a very slippery slope.

Granted, it explains about Offa and how the dyke was built, but the people who campaigned for the centre were walkers who wanted the National Trail.

For the walker actually doing Offa's Dyke, there was actually very little of use!

I wondered if there was an accommodation list, and sure enought there was; in a little booklet that on first inspection looks full of all the right stuff. Until you try to use it, that is!

The National Trail Guide books are written as though you are doing the walk from south to north. So why oh why is the accommodation list arranged from north to south?

The Trail Guide refers to places actually marked on the map: the accommodation list does not - it mentions the name of the owner of the establishment first, then the postal address - incredibly useless for the walker! He wants to know how far the B&B is along the walk, not the postal address, which is next to b***dy useless to him! A veritable mine of information that you would have to spend days examining to get the details you need!.

I pointed this out to the lady who was manning the centre and all she said was "Nobody else complains!" I suggested to her that the average visitor to the centre was not actually walking the dyke, they had come there by car. She shrugged her shoulders as if she did not give a stuff!

Trying to be as helpful as possible I told her how the Pennine Way list was arranged and how much easier it is for the walker. She was having none of it and said - Then write and tell the OD Association..."

I gave up at this point and left, as I did not want to buy marmalade, pictures of Trails in the USA, any pottery or jumpers, sweatshirts etc.

This place is a joke - it has become a thinly disguised retail opportunity for the car driver, with staff that are mere shop-keepers with an attitude.

DAY 25 Knighton, Rest Day

DAY 25: Rest Day, Knighton
The British landladies' politeness:

"And what time will you be arriving this evening", she asks at the other end of the phone as I am booking my night's accommodation. I rattle my brains, look at a section of the days walk (the other part is tucked behind it in the Ortlieb bag) and hazard a guess: 5:30? "That's fine." Shall I ring you if I will be earlier or later?

"Oh, No bother - I shall be in all day..."

"What time would you like breakfast?" Half seven? I ask. "I can do eight o'clock then" she replies.

"Have you come far today then?" About twenty Miles - XYZ town. " Never heard of that" she replies - "How far is that then?"

I stand on her doorstep, drenched from head to toe, boots covered in red mud. "At least you have had nice weather today then..."

And after all this you are welcomed into her home, given the front door key, sit at her fire with tea and fruit cake and relax, confident that this evening you can relax and are in the warm as the rain lashes against the windows or the temperature plummets to well below zero as your wooly socks are steaming on the radiator.

DAY 24: Kington to Knighton

Today: 13.6 miles
Total so far: 383.0 miles
Percentage Completed: 22.9%

(Click map to enlarge)

Dr. Ashton met me for breakfast at my B&B - which was one major effort having travelled down from Yorkshire.

The Offa's Dyke Guide Book admits that today's walk is probably the highlight of this National Trail. I have to agree. The climbs are not spine melting and the views are top drawer; the walk beautifully crafted to offer droolingly wanton views at every bend in the track.

The days is watery sunshine with misty vistas, letting your imagination to complete every view. Buzzards and skylarks provide the backing track, with lambs and careful mothers providing the scene shifting.

After a while, we pause to take in the wonderful scenery and Ali declares it is time for lunch.

She produces from her little rucksack: Smoked peppered salmon with fresh lemons, cream cheese, cos lettuce, bread rolls balsamic dressing followed by fresh fruit salad and fruit cake. This was accompanied by a chilled (!) bottle of champagne and a platypus of chilled Chablis.

It was one of those 'Gone to Heaven with a Gold Card' moments. Four chaps doing Kington to Knighton happened upon us as we were sipping champagne and wonderfully donated five pounds to the cause.

Ali packed up, and set off to return to her car, and so I plodded on, marvelling at the human spirit so alive in the chosen few!

I sauntered over the next beautiful hill and on my descent a shady character popped out of the bushes and took my picture walking down the dyke. Incredibly, it was Steve Smith, freshly back from a business trip to Italy and having driven 120 miles to accidentally bump into me!

Steve is a luminescent guy that brightens every chance meeting. His last TGO Challenge had been a minor epic, and he was assisted greatly by Ali & Sue on their crossings. He has been in quite a nasty accident with a European truck (don't you just love them?) and still need physio to sort his back out. He very gamely managed the next few hills with me before he had to return to his car, to go to a 'real world out there' party back home this evening.

What a splendid day, passing through magnificent border countryside.

I have to say - the most beautiful part of the walk so far.

Sloping down the hill into Knighton, I pass the golf Course, with chaps in fine sweaters and shiny shafted clubs that catch the late afternoon sunlight. It doesn't seem to be on my planet, so I make my way quietly into the backdoor of Knighton to find a shop that sells envelopes to send guidebooks home, and then slip into the quiet George & Dragon for a couple of pints of the Reverend James.

I read in the paper that Jade Goody has had her breasts enlarged, so all is well with the real world out there.

DAY 23: Hay on Wye to Kington

Today: 15.2 miles
Total so far: 369.4 miles
Percentage Completed: 22.1%

(Click map to enlarge)

A scrappy morning through muddy little lanes, trying to get phone reception to book tonight's B&B. Then Newchurch and a sea change in fortunes - one of Kilvert's churches and a little gem that does teas & coffees with an honesty box and table outside to relax. A quiet little place as close to heaven as you can get.

The springy turf and a fine views from Disgwlfa Hill more then make up for the scrappy morning. Then its down into Gladestry, too late for the pub. I knock open the Post Office and the wonderful lady makes me a cheese and pickle sandwich and a coffee, then carries my pack into her back garden so I can sit and enjoy them. These little pieces of kindness are making my journey one of overwhelming happiness.

Refreshed I gambol up Hergest Ridge (any Mike Oldfield fans out there? He lives in sight of the ridge) as the wind gets sharper and the gorse looks more and more battered. The views from the top are hazy as poor weather threatens, but it makes the ridge more personal; closer to me. Looking back I can make out Hay Bluff in the distance - it seems years away in my mind.

Time is washing over me and I am a man with no clock to measure it by, save that of distant views of the past.

DAY 22: White Castle to Hay

DAY 22: Great Tre-rhew Farm to Hay on Wye
Today: 22.0 miles
Total so far: 354.2 miles
Percentage completed: 21.2%

(Click map to enlarge)

The reprise for the walk at the end of a long day: My feet ache. Again.

The guide for Offa's Dyke starts today at Pandy, some 8km past Great Tre-rhew Farm. I think that is a good plan. I arrive at Pandy after struggling in slippery mud and over even more slippery styles at 10:30am - to start the Guide Book's 28.2km to Hay.

(Black Mountains - morning mist)

Then it was straight up onto Hatterall Hill and the long ridge walk to Hay Bluff. Lunch heralded the onset of clouds and more rain coming straight at me, but I was doing okay. But the Mud! I seem to bang on a lot about mud, but this stuff has to be seen to be believed. The very worse bits have been slabbed, but it is hard going in the wet.

But I made it alright into the 'Rest for the Tired' B&B - very aptly named - to lie on the bed trying to stop the feet killing me, with three cups of tea. Tea has magical qualities, see, look you, boyo.

They don't do phone signals round these parts, so who knows where this will be posted from. So you won't know about the merlins I saw, the ravens and buzzards either. The Sugar loaf, signs to the magical Llanthony Priory and Capel-y-Ffyn. The clouds whistling over me, soaking my increasingly rufty-tufty beard.

(Black Mountains)

I am very tired again, and listening to three women in Kilverts (with some very nice 'The Reverend James' - a good discovery) each trying to top the other with appalling tales of dreadfully rich relatives with no manners and hateful wives. None has had a good word to say the hour I have been here, but this has been softened listening to Paul Jones with his excellent choice of blues music on Radio Two.

I have decided, quite surprisingly for me, that I LIKE people! (Apart that is, from the three hateful hags sitting on the next table.) Now, where did I leave that Big Red Button with "Eliminate" typed on it in big, scary letters?

One last thing: I have been carrying Rachael's tin of whiskey flavoured fruit cake since Bath, and I scoffed it with relish on the Black Mountains today.

Thank you Rach. Diamond Girl.

DAY 21: Brockweir to Great Tre-rhew Farm

Today: 22.5 miles
Total so far: 332.2 miles
Percentage Completed: 19.9%

(Click map to enlarge)

Great Tre-rhew Farm is just past White Castle on my route. It is heaven of a sort and also hell. I was not going to have any wheeled transport on this walk of mine, but having staggered in here, Trevor exclaimed I needed a pint. The nearest local was The Three Salmon, two miles or so away and so after a sheep-dip bath, I guiltily climbed into the passenger seat of his 4x4 (Don't you just love them? Did Gordon punish the farmers?) and was transported in considerable style to the pub, where I met Stephen (headmaster) Keith (plumber) and George (the man who reared the fillet steak and his brother who butchered it) and Roger who pulled the excellent pints.

I tried all the beers and enjoyed one more than the others, but cannot for the life of me remember which was which. I laughed all evening, sitting in front of the woodburner but was saddened to hear that Roger will not be open much longer Such a shame. The good beer was 'Butty' something or other.

But back to the start of the day.

I bimbled along quite well in the afternoon and made White Castle in good time - what an amazingly atmospheric place, had a scout around and then made my way down by field paths to the farm.

Another excellent day. Tomorrow is big again - I have been given my orders for the pubs to visit in Hay by the boys in the pub tonight. So - an early start will be vital!

Having stopped short of my intended target the previous day due to the YHA's incompetence, I decided to stroll today's additional miles up the Wye from Brockweir - a good plan on paper that did not take into account the high tide of the Wye. The path at Brockweir was a good two feet under water, so I opted to leg it up the 'A' road to the next river crossing and then follow the Wye Valley Way to Monmouth. A good plan.

The Wye was sensational. The river was the colour of full-fat plumptious virgin olives. The sky was an impossible blue, the grass an emerald green. The river slid, rolled and galloped past me, sunlight catching the edges of the eddies and dazzled against the dark rocks that sat solidly mid stream. Swans preened and displayed, siskins burst from hedgerows in huge gangs and buzzards soared, prowling overhead, their under-colours dazzling in the sunlight.

It was a perfect morning.

(Monmouth Bridge Gatehouse)

Monmouth was Monmouth: Okay, but having a hard time. The lunchtime pub was geared for the pensioner trade, and I felt awkward. Only one reasonable beer. I chose the wrong pub. But I was on my way within an hour, having written post cards to Mum and the pub (honestly, in that order!)

(White Castle)

DAY 20: Alveston to Brockweir: Evening Report

Today:16.3 miles
Total so far: 309.7 miles
Percentage Completed: 18.6%

(Click map to enlarge)

I don't know why I stumped up to join the YHA: So far I have tried to get into three and have failed each time. The Lizard was shut. Street was full (Who on earth would want to go there?!) St Briavels didn't even answer the phone but left the message that it was not open for business today. Unbelievable really. No wonder the organisation is going down the tubes - they are never open!

So - with no Youth Hostel booked, I managed to get in at this super B&B, reasonably priced and two cups of tea and a seat in front of the fire on arrival. Small businesses. Backbone of the tourist industry. The Great British B&B.

This afternoon is glorious, if cold. It is wonderful to have elastic earth and leaf-mould under my boots at last, with wind rushing in the tall, ancient trees. Glancing through the trees I see the Wye snaking through its gorge, the remains of old quarries now full of wildlife.

The Dyke is hugely impressive and I push uphill to better and better viewpoints. The top of the dyke is gnarled roots and white rocks stained by thousands of walkers boots. The lower ditch is a delight of soft earth and shelter from the blasting north wind.

I have ample time to take a long break, the Wye hundreds of feet below me bright like silver in the afternoon sun. I am wearing every coat I have, and am snug, munching on a ham, cheese & pickle roll from Cuz Helen.

You don't forget afternoons like these.

DAY 20: Lunchtime Report

DAY 20: Lunchtime Report
Castle View Hotel, Chepstow

Hello, Shadwell here...

I am now in the Land of my Fathers: Wales. I arrived here by dint of scaling the impressive old Severn Bridge.

I was bl**dy freezing and all three coats were worn. Having arrived in Wales,albeit briefly, as I am about to cross back into Ingerland over the old Chepstow bridge, I also hit the 300 miles walked mark.

This is an good old inn - unpretentious, and friendly. I am on my second pint of thought juice, Hereford Pale Ale and it is refreshing.

The castle looks lovely and one day I will come back when it is warm & sunny and clamber all over it, but as it is bitter cold outside and nice and warm in here, it can wait until another day.

So far I have not been assailed by the 'Welshness' of anything (apart from the ridiculous road-signs - political correctness gone barmy) and it seems a civilized sort of country. I shall now nip back over to England, just in case...