Week 6 - Offa and other interesting people
Week Six blog, only a couple of days late, I really must try harder, or at least find sites with better 4G connection.
This week saw a return to my roots as it were; after five weeks of easy walking supported by Sandra I was looking forward to backpacking about 80 miles along Offa’s Dyke from Chepstow to Knighton and on to Craven Arms.
Backpacking has at least two broad meanings, for many people it means a gap year experience flying to exotic places and living out of a back pack for anything from a few weeks to months. However, in the British hill walking tradition backpacking is a term reserved for long distance walking where you carry everything you need on your back.
I began backpacking at the start of the lightweight camping revolution, but lightweight is a relative term; the rucksack I hauled up the Pennine Way was a vast Karrimor K2 frame with a huge Totem Senior sack; fully packed with tent, kapock sleeping bag, steel and brass petrol stove etc. it weighted about 35 lbs before adding food and water.
Things have improved immeasurably in the last 40 odd years and in the months before the start of this trip I made several judicious purchases, replacing old, heavy and worn out bits of kits with modern lightweight replacements. One of the key pieces of kit is my new tent, provided curtesy of my colleagues at the University of Cumbria as a retirement present!
My super light tent
Fully loaded my pack only weighed about 20lbs including a litre of water and food for 3-4 days. The intention was the same however, walk every day, find a campsite, pitch my small tent, sleep ; repeat until I got to Craven Arms. It is a simple almost austere method of travelling there is just the walking, everything else is planed away and life is reduced to basic perambulation.
My plan was to walk north, up the Offa’s Dyke path until Knighton, about half way, and then head north-east from to Craven Arms and Sandra.
The Offa’s Dyke path was opened in about 1971 and wends its way northwards roughly along the English/Welsh border, parts of it follow the great earth work built to the order of King Offa of Mercia in the mid 8th century to separate the civilized Anglo-Saxons from the Welsh. I first walked the path in 1978, shortly after it was opened and just about the only two things I remember were an almost infinite number of stiles and camping in a barn (I actually put my tent up inside a barn). Otherwise almost nothing sticks in my memory. I think I was disappointed by the walk, my previous trips had been to the Lake District or the Pennines, places of high mountains and great adventures. Offa’s Dyke was a distinct anti climax.
The path, particularly south of Knighton wends its way through the Welsh borders, mile after mile of rolling farmland, it’s very pretty, especially in the spring but not dramatic, the Black Mountains offer a brief foray into hill walking but generally the route is charming rather than exciting. It could have been saved by stirring references to the long history of the English/Welsh borders, alas it isn’t, there are a few intermittent signs and information boards, a couple of fine castle (Chepstow and White Castle) but not a lot to relieve the pastoral idyll or provide blood stirring inspiration.
Chepstow castle, start of the Offa’s Dyke Path
This time round however I appreciated it for what it is, the landscape is beautiful and the spring flowers, particularly the bluebells were a joy to see and walk through.
One of many fine bluebell woods along the path
However Offa’s Dyke scores well on the “Interesting People Index (IPI)”. If you read any travelogues or accounts of long distance trips, the authors fill their accounts with witty descriptions of amusing encounters with interesting people.
The South West Coast Path had a low IPI, this might have been because we were so early in the season, everywhere was just opening and few people were brave enough to take on Cornwall in mid March, alternatively all the interesting people saw me coming and hid round a corner until I’d gone past. Offa’s Dyke was almost awash with colourful characters; John-Paul Jones in his wheelchair and Johnathan his carer on their way to the shops who saved me from getting lost in a housing estate in Chepstow after some local persons had altered the direction a key sign was pointing. Stan the warden at the Polish Scout Camp who opened the pristine showers and toilets for me.
Philip and John from Canada who come to Britain every year to walk one of our historic paths, Emma and Tony Walley who walked with for an hour or more on two separate days, the campsite owner who charged £10 for cash but £12 on a card. And of course Tom.
It is rare to meet other people walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats, there is no official route, people pick their own way and walk at their own pace. On the Somerset Levels a battered Land Rover pulled over and asked if I was walking to John O’Groats, apparently the only people he sees walking across his fields are LEJOGers, heading for one of the few bridges across the Huntspill River. The farmer said he’d seen a young bloke the day before and a couple of people I met said they’d met someone else, but until I was leaving Monmouth I’d never seen anyone. Then I met Tom.
He was in his late twenties, he’d left Land’s End two weeks after me, and expects to finish in a month before I do. He’s also backpacking the whole route, solo and with a rucksack smaller and lighter than mine. He was also a great bloke and we walked and talked about the route for an hour or so before he speeded up and went on his way. If you read this Tom, I hope you finished and had a great time.
Stan John and Phillip Tom
Offa’s Dyke also scores well in the quality and quantity of its sign posting and the quality and quantity of the available accommodation. Back in the 70’s progress along the route was slow, there were few signposts and hundreds of stiles. Now the route is wonderfully waymarked and all the stiles have been replaced by gates, a boon to any walker. There is also something of an Offa’s Dyke industry, campsites abound as do cafes and tea rooms; this is a general trend across the country as the leisure industry has provided much needed income to many country areas but the towns and villages along Offa’s Dyke have embraced it with enthusiasm and walking the path is now much easier and more pleasant than it once was.
There has only been one notable achievement this week, near the summit of Hergest Ridge I passed the 400 mile mark. As I remarked in last week’s blog each of these hundred mile thresholds has its own psychological importance, the 400 mile mark was the point at which I felt able to tell people I met that I was trying to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
Hergest ridge, 400 miles at its summit
Maybe I can now be classed as an Interesting Person by people I meet on the way north, or may be not.
As normal, here is the week and trip totals.
Total for week:- 86 Miles 10,357 Feet of Ascent, 182,113 Paces, 42 Hours of Walking.
Walk Total to date:- 443 Miles 52,106 Feet of Ascent, 982,906 Paces, 200 Hours of Walking.
Land’s End to John O’Groats walk 35% completed.
35% I can see the Midlands