walking west – 28 aug, 2018
Day 23 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Hereford to Hay-On-Wye
Distance: 35km
Cumulative distance: 585km
Dad pulled up in surprisingly good nick this morning given he didn’t digest his salmon sufficiently last night, and was barely able to walk up the stairs once we made it to our accommodation. But luckily he still opted to have the day off, because it turned out to be a long one! I’d been looking forward to Hay-On-Wye since I started this walk – it’s the second-hand capital of the UK, randomly enough, despite a population of barely 1500. There are some two dozen book shops in town, which I worked out to be roughly one for every 65 inhabitants. My version of heaven really. The problem was I had a loooooooong stroll west before I could consider exploring such a magical place.
I was up early and away at a decent hour to try and make an early dent in the required exertions ahead. Mum, Dad and I planned to meet up in Bredwardine for lunch in about five hours’ time – they would run some errands in town and maybe check out the cathedral while I would take a bearing to the west and burn some sole rubber. I picked up the river and followed it for a few miles through the western skirts of Hereford, and I’ll happily say it reminded me of walking the banks of the Queanbeyan River between Thorpe Avenue and Barracks Flat. I turned north and twisted through a few fields before I came to an old Roman road! According to the map anyway…my excitement was immediately quelled when I realised it was just another country road. That Romans used back in the day. I don’t know what I was expecting to be honest. But according to the map there were a few miles of this ahead, then a few turns and another mile or two. I proceeded between a few farms then picked up the river again and came on into Byford. After passing a few road workers (a throng of road workers I should say), I turned up a public footpath which pretty soon turned into a quagmire, and I spent about half a mile plunging through persistent patches of mud. Not too far down the road I came across a couple of middle aged ladies, and pointed out where we were on my map, and that they weren’t too far from Byford if they could handle the mud. One of them gave me a recently picked apple for my troubles! Her friend added me on Facebook so she could follow my progress.
Just down the way, as the mud dried out, I came to a massive apple orchard. From what I could tell, all the apples in the UK probably come from this one spot – there were thousands and thousands of rows of apple trees, all with a colourful array of fallen fruit at their feet. I found a sign a bit further along which told me this belonged to the cider mob Bulmers. All you Bulmers drinkers out there let me just say, these apples were the bomb. I’m more into hops and barley myself but could be tempted to turn if you plonked a Bulmers in front of me, and offered to square up the bill. I went through Mornington on Wye where those two ladies behind me had started out and passed by a beautiful church yard before I hit what’s called the Straight Mile. It began a few hundred metres up from a magnificent looking home, and proceeded for (presumably) a mile, along a road for a short while and then onto a path bordered by beautiful Scots Pines. After completing the mile, I entered a forest and quickly found myself fairly lost and in danger of making it to lunch on time. I ended up further west than I thought I was, but surrounded by incredible trees boasting trunks that looked to have been sculpted by hand for an art exhibition or some such. I bumbled around a little and re calibrated before stumbling along one of those Wye Valley Walk signs and realising I was on back on track. It’s amazing how often that happens.
Mum called and told me they’d become lost themselves en route to Bredwardine, and that they were heading back to Hereford to start again. Turns out I wasn’t running late after all. I still managed to make a wrong turn again, and walk for half a kilometre down a farm driveway before rectifying the error at the cost of about 10 minutes. I eventually came into town after crossing the Wye over the Bredwardine Bridge, and called Mum again to find out they were no closer. I opted to have lunch alone outside a church and told them I’d meet them in Hay On Wye. Unfortunately my OS map was about to run out, and I didn’t have the next version I would need – Mum and Dad had picked up that during their morning errands and I would have to grab it from them that night. It meant navigating about eight km or so without it, but if I stuck to the Wye Valley Walk I should be sweet. Coming out of town I hit a ridiculous hill, with a signpost telling me it was a 25 per cent gradient. I felt every bit of that having not had many hills to worry about since walking with Bird and Amy. That took me a long way up and by the time I turned off into a farm, I had brilliant views in almost every direction. It was delightful up there, so green with sheep everywhere and the valley a long, long way below.
Next up was Merbach Hill at 318m which is actually one of the highest I’ve done so far. There were more great views up there, but coming down was pretty tough – super steep and on a bed of dead fern leaves. At one stage near the summit I took the wrong path down taking on a stack of blackberries and gorse. I could see the path I was meant to be on about 10m away, but there were a LOT of blackberry bushes and gorse in between so I decided to retrace my steps. Geez those things can get ahold of you. I made it down the hill eventually, and came out onto a main road walking out of the reaches of my map. Pretty soon the signposts for the Wye Valley Wye stopped coming and I realised I must have missed a turn off the road some way back. All good – the road was headed west and that’s the direction I was going so I just stuck my head down and painfully pounded the pavement. Road miles are always the toughest this late in the day, and I had a stretch of about 10km worth before I made it to Hay-On-Wye. I shared it with a speeding BMW, a thundering 18-wheeler and a broken down van which I had to scuttle around when there was a break in the rest of the traffic. Mum and Dad met me at the tourist info centre when I came into town and I resolved that night to have a day off and explore some of these book shops.
A) Wales
B) Equatorial Guinea