September 2006 - Walking - Offa's Dyke

Part 1
12-14th September 2006

Setting off from Prestatyn

I started at Prestatyn at 9am on Wednesday, and set off through the town and up Prestatyn Hills - surprisingly easy going, and great views North to Hoyle Wind Farm floating in the sea, and west to Snowdonia and Anglesey. The weather was perfect - warm but not that sunny that I needed sun cream, and enough of a breeze on the ridge to prevent me from getting sweaty and uncomfortable. I kept a reasonable pace, although stopped quite often to pig out on blackberries! I surprised a couple of rabbits on the path, and later on in the day discovered a couple of frogs. I met a few people going the other way (the more conventional direction in which to walk the path), who were surprised at my target of 9 days and wished me luck. I congratulated them on having nearly finished!


The Prestatyn Hills soon gave way to farmland, and the feared fields of cows. Luckily they all turned out to be pretty un-interested, and I started to feel a lot more confident about the sections of farmland! Then briefly it returned to fields and gorse, and a pine forest a lot large than the map indicated which meant I got lost for 40 minutes as I lost the path through the gorse and ended armpit deep in the stuff trying to find a route through a decidious forest, but all I could see were pine trees. My knees were starting to hurt here, so even when I finally found the real path, I wasn't appreciative of it being downhill (my knees are fine on the up hills, but not the downs).

I made it to Rhuallt at lunchtime, the end of the first mini-section of 7.6 miles, but I'd wanted to eat my lunch at Bodfari another 4.3 miles away, so I had a quick break for a single sandwich then pressed on.

By the time I got to Bodfari I was growing quite tired, so was glad to be able to stop and eat. I still had over 8 miles to go to my collection point, so I didn't pause long. Before I knew it I was in the Clwyd Hills - stretch of ups, and downs, on clear, way marked paths with no stiles, where you can ignore the map and just stroll and relax. This allowed me to pick up speed - before I had been reading the pages of the book to see what points of interest I was passing, now I hardly spared a glance at the map and just followed the acorns (the signs on the waymarkers, several of them missing presumably taken as souvenirs).

For some reason I expected the path to be flat-ish and weave a path round and through the hills, but if you look into the distance and pick the biggest hill, you can be sure the path will take you over it! I went through Penycloddiau hill fort, and circumnavigated Moel Arthur fort, then slogged my way up the peak of Moel Llys-y-coed. I squeeled shortly afterwards on the ridge section, as a frightened vole (or maybe a mouse?) ran under my foot and nearly got squashed under my boot. It was nearing sunset by this point, but I met 4 blokes wandering about in the bracken. I thought they might have been orienteering, but it turns out they're marking out a spot to set up a stage to host a play to raise awareness of refugees, on the night of 7th October. Intriguing indeed!

Jubilee Tower from afar

After speaking to them I got a call from Jason (a friend whose house I was staying at that night and the previous) who was he was at the car park and was going to start walking to meet me. Unfortunately he didn't realise how far away I still was, and shortly afterwards had to return to the car as it was getting too dark for me to make the desired distance, and there was a closer car park at the base of Moel Famau. Moel Famau is a cool hill (millstone grit in fact, although none exposed), with the Jubilee Tower on top. I stopped for a snack of sultanas at the top, shovelleing them into my mouth not realising how hungry I'd become! I'd also run out of water, but two ladies out taking their dog or a night-time stroll were kind enough to donate some to me. The wind had suddenly picked up so I donned a jacket and trousers and start the slow descent of the hill, leaving behind me the signpost 'Prestatyn 20 miles, Chepstow 158'.

I refused to put the head torch on until it was properly black, as it was quite romantic strolling by moonlight. I was surprised by the amount of traffic around on the hills - on top of the dog walkers and stage managers, there was a whole fleet of kids from the local college escorted by a couple of teachers on their way up to the Jubilee tower for a team building exercise, and a stream cyclist. The kids caught me back up near the car park at the bottom, calling to check I was still okay.

Back at Jason's I iced my knees, had a lovely dinner then collapsed into a deep sleep.The next morning I surprisingly didn't feel too tired, and I set off a little earlier knowing I had to cover a similar distance (21 miles ish) to make it to my target of Llangollen by nightfall. I had a heavier pack too, having left some stuff at Jason's the night before. Also the weather wasn't great - a contant mizzle (drizzle from mist), which turned out into all out lasting rain. The order of the day was more hills, weaving up, down and round. I met four gentlemen on a circular walk with umbrellas, not such a silly idea as it sounds! I left them behind at the stiles as it took a while for all 4 of then to get over, but they caught me up on the downhills - not surprising as by now I'd taken to walking down them facing inwards towards the hill, as it eased the pain from the tightness in the tendons behind my knees.

The dreaded cows

Shortly before Llandegla there's more farmland, one field in particular had some frisky bulls mounting the cows, and one stood and stared at me so I climbed into a small patch of trees to take a detour! I was still quite pleased with myself and the amount of field of cows (and horses, and donkeys, and cows with calves, and cows with bulls) I'd managed to get through without turning into a gibbering wreck - until I reached the last farm, a lowly 1 mile from Llangegla, my lunch stop for the day. I walked down one edge of a field sheltered by trees, turned the corner then realised the trees led me right into the middle of two adjoined fields. The cows/bulls/bullocks whatever they were (the latter I think) ran in from all directions to cut off my path. I perservered for a little while stomping and screaming to get them to clear a path, but they didn't and a truly massive specimen came to stand in front of me, so I beat a retreat and they followed me the whole way, while I bawled at them, to stop following me.

That was the last straw really - my feet were soaked, as I climbed over each stile between the farm and the road I was crying out in pain from my knees, and I had to take a seemingly never ending detour by road to Llandegla. I eventually arrived at the town, passing another signpost proclaiming 'Prestatyn 29 miles, Chepstow 158'. I was visualising a thriving main street with a selection of cafes in which to pause, dry out a little, and recover. Or maybe even a B&B in which I could stop the night and start a-fresh in the morning when it was bound to be dry, even if it did mean I'd have to postpone all my accommodation for a day. Instead there was a single pub as you come out of the town, and it was more of a restaurant and definitely didn't have rooms. I went straight into the ladies room to get dried and change into clean clothes. Up until this point I'd been considering all my options on how to keep going, but the second I got into dry clothes I realised there was no way I was putting my wet ones back on, and I was quitting. My boots were so wet they still haven't dried out now, 2 days later. Also the plastic support on the back of my bag broke while I was getting my clean clothes out.

I had a nice steak in the restaurant, then had to work out how to get home - there was only one bus and it had gone already, and there weren't any local taxis, and those in Llangollen were all on school runs. In the end I got a taxi from Wrexham and got a train home from there.

I got a couple of blisters on my feet but I didn't even notice them until I got home and could have easily carried on for days if that had been the only problem
I managed a total distance of 30 miles. Plus when I got home I consulted the map to add up the contour lines: on the first day along there was 1.4km of uphill and 1km of downhill which goes some way to explaining why it took me 11.5 hours to walk 21 miles.