The ridge – 30 aug, 2018
Day 24 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Hay-On-Wye to Kington
Distance: 23km
Cumulative distance: 608km
I can confirm the following:
– Hay-On-Wye is a brilliant place
– Just about all of the two dozen bookstores are awesome
– I may or may not have bought about 10 books, most of which will be going home with Mum and Dad for me to read over the summer
– The Three Tuns is one of the best pubs I’ve been to
– Belmont House is a fantastic BnB and the old lady who runs it is incredible. And cooks a mean English brekky too
Seriously, just go there at some point. Anyway, onto the walking.
We switched paths today, from the Wye Valley Walk onto the Offa’s Dyke Path which Bird, Amy and I had flirted with on occasion the other day. The plan was to take the Offa’s Dyke all the way to Chirk, then head north west up through Liverpool and Manchester and beyond. But there was plenty to get through before then. First up we crossed the river which had completely turned back on itself and was now flowing south to north. It stayed with us on our right for a few km, then we crossed some farmland and headed across a main road and up a hill. We met three American ladies, two Texans and one from Chicago, and chatted to them for a little while. They’d come over to do the Offa’s Dyke through a tour company and were also heading for Kington that afternoon. They were great, so enthusiastic and happy to be out on the trail. We left them behind and headed further uphill past a nice patch of blackberries and with brilliant views over Wales already stretching before us. More lush farmland was to come before we headed down into Newchurch for a spot of morning tea.
Following that was another decent hill with more views, and an incredibly wide footpath entirely eliminating the possibility of getting lost. This was a welcome change from a lot of the walk so far, and I couldn’t believe how spacious the track was now – it was like a highway and could’ve easily accommodated one and maybe even two cars. Huffing and puffing we came to the top of that hill, and it was a lot barer up there, more ferns and low lying plants rather than trees. We had another steep downhill to navigate and then came into Gladestry for lunch, where we found Mum at the church. She’d been to the Hay On Wye markets that morning and had picked up some incredible ham, cheese, tomato and relish rolls, plus some lemon cake for a second course. I could get used to this! A lady popped out of the church and told us to help ourselves to some tea and coffee – instead we refilled our water bottles and we were off again.
Almost immediately we were back into the uphills (this was more like it!), up a steep driveway and then eventually out onto the top of a huge ridge. We’d seen the start of it looking over Gladestry while we ate lunch and figured we’d have to go up it at some point. What we couldn’t see from our lunchtime vantage point was just how long Hergest Ridge was. This was a real highlight of the walk so far, and there was plenty to enjoy up here – ponies with their newly born foals, one mother who was very heavily pregnant, sheep, and panoramic views. We came to Whetstone, and a sign told us this was the site where some rock from an adjacent hill had been deposited during the ice age or some such. We also crossed an ancient race track which a road worked had told us about earlier in the day, and came across a plantation of pine trees behind a memorial stone which stood out from miles away as we’d discover in coming days.
The ridge carried on for a good few miles and eventually we started bearing downhill once more with the descent into Kington upon us. I’m pretty sure we were back in England by this stage – the Offa’s Dyke Path runs right up the border with Wales and crosses the boundary several times throughout. We passed some lovely looking gardens on our right, and eventually came into town past an old church and onto a high street with a heap of bunting dangling from the shop fronts. Apparently there’s a walking festival here each year. The library was shut though, so I couldn’t get any work done unfortunately despite my best efforts to finish early and catch up on a few posts. We met up with Mum, I marked exactly where I would need to resume tomorrow and then we headed back to Hay On Wye for one last night.
