LEJOG Day 36: Porth-y-waen to Chirk

Weather: Cloudy, then rain, finally sun

Distance covered today: 19.3km (12.0mi)

Last night's B&B: Bankside (£28)

Cumulative distance: 697.1km (433.2mi)/ % Complete: 39.6%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 36 (click!)

So, after eleven legs, Offa and I parted for the last time this evening. I feel exactly the reverse of the feelings at the start of the path, a sense of excitement that I will be choosing my own path for the next few days, but a slight concern that without the very clear signage of the National Trails, I may again find myself in the odd dead end or on a difficult A-road!

For the next few days, I am heading essentially east. My goal is Edale at the start of the Penine Way. I have plotted my route using Google Maps.  I didn’t have access to Ordnance Survey maps of this area while I was walking, because they would have been just too heavy to carry!  Thanks to Veronica, the OS maps arrived this evening at my B&B, which is just great JIT planning! My first day will involve three maps, which seemed terrifying at first glance, until I realised that it was just a matter of the route crossing edges of each of the maps. It looks an extremely interesting day’s walk, but, watch this space…

The last couple of days have gone in a blur. The good news is that today’s difficult leg, which involved lots of ups and downs, and a reasonable distance with full pack, did not elicit any new aches and pains, or for that matter, any old ones. I walked a little slower than I might have, just in case, but everything seemed to be in working order. At first, it was a bit of a wrench to feel the weight of the full pack after three days of freedom, but after a couple of hours, I was used to it again. Still, it doesn’t change my view that unless I can either radically reduce the weight of the pack, or find some other solution, such as forwarding the bulk of the pack over the difficult sections of the walk, I will not be able physically to continue.  Richard’s comment on yesterday’s blog is spot on. There isn’t much I can easily take out of the pack. I did a ruthless prune of my stuff and found that I could only get rid of about 0.75kg (1.7lb), which is simply not enough to make a significant difference.   I have contacted an outfit who may be able to help by transferring my stuff over the national trails and we are in negotiation. It may be the solution.

Today’s journey northwards was interesting for a number of reasons. For a start, I passed north of Shrewsbury for the first time which seems significant because Shrewsbury is Veronica’s home town and we have visited it many times to see my in-laws. This is Veronica’s stamping ground. Many of the features I could peer at through the mist are very familiar to her and she will have roamed amongst them on her pony as a teenager. This is her country.

It is also time for me to say goodbye to the troubled border between England and Wales. There are lots of jokes about the relationship between the English and the Welsh, but I find increasingly that in practice, it isn’t a laughing matter.

Today, late in the day at a place called Craignant, I had a graphic example of the conflict. I was searching for a nineteenth century stone indicating Offa’s Dyke high in a crenelated wall, when I came across the first group of walkers I had seen all day. They asked me to join them for a cup of tea, and after some hesitation, I did so. They were very generous with tea, cakes and chocolates. They told me that a few of them were walking and the rest were supporting the walkers.

It turned out that this was a mixed group of Welsh and English people and they were on a “prayer walk for peace between the Welsh and the English”. I politely pointed out that I didn’t think the English and the Welsh were at war, and I was smartly put in my place. There followed graphic accounts of weekend raids between the northern industrial towns on the border, where groups of youths would drive into each other’s “territory” to find lone individuals who they would beat up on the street before returning to their side of the border. It occurred to me that this is equivalent to the gang warfare in the streets of the large urban centres, but I had no idea that it had a racial, nationalist flavour in this part of Wales.

The walkers told me that as they progressed down Offa’s Dyke, the Welsh component would go into churches on the English side and pray for peace and vice versa for the English. I tried to point out that the yobs wouldn’t be listening, but they short-circuited me and said that the reason the yobs behaved the way they do is because of the attitudes of their communities and that is where reconciliation has to start. Looking at the isolation of the churches in modern, secular Britain, where people seem only to attend for Christenings, marriages and funerals, I have my doubts whether too many locals will be involved, but what do I know? As for the walkers, their faith sustains them and they do good work.

Offa’s answer was to build his dyke. Clearly it didn’t work either.

Is this my name in Welsh?

A fine, soft day in Wales. It had been raining cats and dogs, but I was in the forest at the time and by the time the leaves started dripping, the rain stopped and I left the forest! Talk about luck!

This is the sad tomb of "Jane's horse". No other information. Why does he face both ways? It is certainly a very sad looking statue...

The remains of the Oswestry race-course pavilion. The racecourse had a very colourful history in the nineteenth century, but that is another story

This is a toposcope of the surroundings looking South East from Oswestry Race-course. This is Veronica's stamping ground! She knows these places intimately

What it looked like in practice through the mist and gloom! Such a pity!

A last, nostalgic look at another section of Offa's hugely impressive dyke. Most people when they first see it, are underwhelmed. When you walk along it for a couple of weeks, you can't help but be hugely impressed at what it must have taken to build it. It is no less than those Gothic cathedrals...

My everlasting spring marches on! Gorse and bluebells in full blossom, still, after more than 6 weeks!

A nineteenth century homage to Offa

The "prayer walkers" trying to resolve the problems between Wales and England, but here stopped for tea!! How English!

The North Shropshire Plains, going on seemingly for ever

Chirk Castle looms out of the mist!