LEJOG Day 31: Hay-on-Wye to Kington

Weather: Cloudy with cool northerly breeze

Distance covered today: 24.9km (15.3mi)

Last night's B&B: The Seven Seas (£55)

Cumulative distance: 590.9km (366.6mi)/ % Complete: 33.6%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 31 (click!)

Alone again!  It is a strange feeling after almost a week of interaction with family and close friends. At first, I was a bit thrown by the feel of it. I had become very accustomed to my own company on the early part of the journey, but I have so much enjoyed interacting this past week that I felt strangely bereft this afternoon, especially as Julian was always intending to join me for only half of today’s walk. So, suddenly, in the middle of the walk, silence….

It felt so strange that I decided I had to listen to a podcast on my mobile for company as I trudged up the steep hill to the Hergest Ridge. Once there, I found other things to worry about. Over the last day or so, I have gradually felt an increasing pain on the front of my shin, which I fear can only be a shin-splint. It is an injury I have been dreading because I know that it is rarely one that can just be ignored. Resting the affected limb is the treatment of choice and Veronica confirmed this to me on the phone this afternoon. The problem is that my schedule doesn’t allow for resting and at this stage a change to the schedule could compromise the whole project.

I will rest tonight and stagger through to Knighton tomorrow, hopefully after buying some anti-inflammatory ointment here. If I make it I will have a rest day the following day and see how things progress. In the meantime, I will favour it, but basically try to ignore it!  We’ll see what happens. In the meantime more important things need to be discussed.

The contrast from walking with John to walking with Julian was very interesting! Both gentlemen were very sensitive to the beauty of the environment, and who wouldn’t be, but their approaches were subtly different.

John’s approach is essentially intellectual. He lives in a world of ideas and although he talks about feelings and “being”, and although he is enormously sensitive to his surroundings, it is clear that he has a need to rationalise it all.  Julian on the other hand has a fundamentally artistic relationship with his surroundings. He is extraordinarily knowledgeable about it and throughout our walk, he was a mine of information on plants and insects, but his appreciation is essentially aesthetic. He too is incredibly sensitive to his environment. He will spot a butterfly almost before it is visible. Both men take far more trouble with their photos than I do and have advanced knowledge of their equipment. I just point and shoot.

Living in Wales, Julian has applied his scientific and aesthetic talents to the understanding of his environment in a unique way. He and Fiona have a webisite which encapsulates the essence of their appreciation of the unique circumstances of their life-style in a long cottage in Wales. And Julian has produced an amazing film, "Epiphany in Translation" which is an artistic triumph, so much so that it has been entered in the Swansea Bay Film Festival and will premiere on 14th May 2011. As much as it celebrates Julian's view of his unique and precious environment, it also encompasses an understanding of synchronicity which strangely aligns it with John's belief syetems. Click here to have a look at Julian and Fiona's amazing site.

But the contrast in their approach also has a consequence which I hadn’t thought about before. Julian is a fundamentalist conservative when it comes to nature. He bemoans the effect of industrialisation and over-population on the fragile environment, and sees threats at every turn. The loss of any species is a disaster for the whole, and the effects on the integrated eco-system are both incalculable and immensely concerning. John on the other hand has a belief that the system will continue to evolve. Not only is the Earth much more resilient than people think it might be, but even if it is forced to change to accommodate man-made changes, these evolutionary changes are no greater than have occurred in the past and continual scientific and technological advances will ensure that mankind remains in control of, or at least can adapt to his mankind-affected environment.

I know better than to take a position on either of these interesting world views. I would of course have loved to hear the two of them discussing these things together. As is the nature of reasonable people, they may have found common cause in many areas, but it does seem to me that in the essence of their intelligent world-views there is a mutually exclusive disagreement, which is both irreconcilable and fundamentally important.

From now on, I wouldn’t be surprised if I find that their voices are added to those of General Freyberg and Father Johnson as I make my way through this simply stunning landscape.

Julian, as usual, contorting his face for the photo!

Moody Black Mountains. The rain held off though!

The River Wye near Hay

Julian tells me this is a Wall Brown; not very common, so a good find

Julian pacing out an ancient oak. He reckons it is 500 years old and may well be in the Register

Filial affection!

As I move North, so this amazing light show moves with me!

For Julian: a bumblebee at work!

The landscape alight!

The Welsh County of Powys runs along much of the border. However, many of the signs said we were in Radnorshire. It seems this was one of the historic Counties of Wales, until someone came along and changed them all. Clearly, the Welsh are just as devious as the English!

Easy walking along the top of the Hergest Ridge

A new-born foal and its mother between the Monkey Puzzle trees, with Kington in the background