Time to walk: LEJOG Day 32: Kington to Knighton

Weather: Cloudy with showers, strong westerley, and some sun

Distance covered today: 23.0km (14.1mi)

Last night's B&B: Royal Oak Inn (£35)

Cumulative distance:613.9km (381.5mi)/ % Complete: 34.9%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 32 (click!)

First a big apology on behalf of Google to anyone who received an email out of the blue with the post for Day 5, (not that I have seen any apology from Google!). For some reason, on Thursday evening Blogger went down without explanation, in the process losing all the data from two of my posts including the photos. It took me some time to recover the data and rebuild the posts, so I wasn’t very happy!

In fact, even without Blogger’s problems, I have been having increasing trouble getting reliable access to the internet. After the successful maintenance to my netbook, thanks to Veronica and André, my equipment is working well. The trouble is mainly the poor performance of the wifi routers in many of the B&Bs. It seems the walls are too thick for the weak, short-range wifi signals, the standards for which were designed only to penetrate the rather flimsy partition walls of most American homes, rather than the solid granite of rural Britain. The result is that I often find myself in the owner’s office or sitting room, or hunched over my netbook on the stairs, but needs must! The problem is likely to increase as I head north. Already, a number of B&Bs have indicated that they are too remote for ADSL and therefore have no internet access. I suspect these places are also too remote for decent 3G mobile signal connection, especially as the villages will tend to be in the valleys, so I may not be able to submit a post at all. But you won’t get off so easily! I will be writing up a post each evening, and will submit in bulk when I have the chance!

Yesterday’s walk was again hard work. I am fast getting to the part of Offa’s Dyke known as the “switchback”, because most of the hills are elongated and run in an east-west direction, with steep ascents and descents. I had a flavour of this yesterday as I approached Knighton. I hadn’t realised that this was a particular facet of Offa’s Dyke, both producing an ever-changing succession of stunning views, while at the same time, requiring an enormous effort in puffing up the hills only to have to descend immediately afterwards. This will continue tomorrow, which is reputedly the toughest day of Offa’s Dyke and which also promises to be a very long day, with a predicted horizontal distance of at least 22.5km (14mi) and the actual distance will no doubt be greater.

I’m also nursing my injuries. The incipient shin-splint fortunately didn’t deteriorate further on the leg into Knighton, but I deliberately walked very slowly and favoured it at each step, particularly on the rapid descents. I was delighted to find an open Boots shop, where, at Veronica’s suggestion, I was able to purchase an anti-inflammatory gel which may help. The pain in my neck from the weight of the backpack also remains a problem and has yet to ease.

With all this going on and with the change in the weather, I decided that I needed to lighten the load. I discovered that a particular taxi just happens to be going to tomorrow’s B&B to forward someone else’s luggage, so I have decided to make use of the opportunity to send the stuff that I won’t need on the trail on ahead as well! This will make tomorrow a little easier, and hopefully allow me to enjoy it!

At last I’ve started to meet a few walkers! Most of these are doing just selected portions of Offa’s Dyke, but yesterday I heard talk of another nutter doing the whole of LEJOG. He is in fact a little ahead of me, obviously going in the same direction, so it is unlikely that we will meet.

The leg into Knighton was characterised above all by a return to Offa’s Dyke itself after 87km (54mi). The Dyke in this part of the walk is sometimes an immense and credible defensive structure, whereas in others it has been eroded to the point that it is a hardly noticeable scar on the land. In many places the trail leads directly along the top of the dyke, which is slightly surprising as I’m sure this will add to the erosion over time. Still there is lots of evidence along the way that the Offa’s Dyke Association is an active custodian and even if no-one knows precisely why it was built, the route, now preserved as one of Britain’s National Trails, is here to stay.

The weather has certainly deteriorated markedly from those halcyon days in April. It is as if April Showers have started in May. It seems to have changed from the moment I saw that headline in the Express saying that the hot weather was predicted to last for a month! So far though, my wet weather gear has been working as expected and although it is irritating having to stop, dismount the backpack, put on all the gear and then remount the backpack, It’s all just part of the experience and the key is reading the weather so that the gear is on when it starts to rain rather than when one is already sopping! The important thing is to simply accept the weather, the hills, and all the other minor irritations as just that. Minor.

After a break of almost 90km, I'm back on the top of Offa's Dyke

A simply beautiful path through spring flowers, with views on all sides

More modern farming: even the sheep dogs get a lift on the quadbike

An interested spectator. Is he a red or grey squirrel?

A view towards Herefordshire through the blossoms

Back to Wales: I am amused to see that they have to put both the new and the old County names on the sign, plus the Welsh name for Radnorshire. Complicated!

This wonderful old man was hitting the heads off the bracken, to prevent it spreading. The signs say that there is an intention to rid the moors of bracken to restore traditional pasture, but they don't explain how. He wasn't really able or willing to explain his own motives, but one can only admire his tenacity given the thousands of hectares ahead of him!