Stiles and kissing gates

Offa’s Dyke Trail is renowned for the hundreds of stiles you have to climb, because so much of the trail crosses farmland. These can be challenging as the first step may be several feet above the ground or not attached at all or the whole mechanism wobbly or surrounded by barbed wire or nettles. Navigating them with a full pack is also hard. Because of this a lot of money has been invested in replacing them with things called kissing gates.

They are a clever design with a gate that swings within a tight enclosure so only one person can squeeze through at a time with the gate automatically closing at one or other opening. That works well until the gap provided is too narrow for you to squeeze through as I embarrassingly experienced today. Grant kindly ?videoed it as he only got through by a hair’s breadth. Removing my pack rescued the day but I’ve attached the video for your entertainment.

I made a good decision today, not involving kissing gates. After the big walk down to Ruthin from the trail yesterday- 5km and 400m drop I decided that there was no way I wanted to do that in reverse just to get back to the start. So we caught a ride with the guy who collected our bags and he popped us up there. Just driving it was enough- second gear territory.

Anyway, it meant that instead of a 19-20km slog we had a really enjoyable 14.5km. Long enough with three climbs but I’m feeling fresh and ready to take on the gorgeous town we have ended up in : Llangollen. Now if you were paying attention a couple of days ago you’ll know that two L’s are pronounced ghhhhhl with your best throat clearing noise. This marvelous town has that twice so it’s ghhhlangoghhhhhlen.

The official end of today was a cute village called Llandegla. (Ghhh again). Apparently that Llan start denotes the fact there’s a church in the village. The second part of the name is to do with the saint associated with that church. There was indeed a church with a delightful notice inside saying ‘please help yourself to tea or coffee in our new kitchen.’ There was also a quaint local store and cafe but we got picked up before we could take advantage of the wonderful cakes on offer. I’m hoping they are open in the morning as we go back there and continue our walk until we reach here tomorrow:)

It’s nice to have two nights in a hotel as you don’t have to pack in the morning and can get some washing done. It’s particularly nice when you have a beautiful view of a river and a vibrant village to explore.

Back to our day. It started with breakfast in the castle’s original banquet hall. So much potential if only someone with silly money could step in and renovate it. The collection of artifacts alone is amazing - suits of armor, tapestries and ancient candelabras and that was just in our breakfast room.

Once we were dropped at Offa’s Dyke we carried on south, firstly climbing yet another ‘Moel’. (Moel means bare hill or mountain). This one gave us magnificent views and our first real southern vistas. The wind kicked in again and I regretted my decision to wear a skirt as it wasn’t quite bare leg weather. The rest of the day was a pleasant amble around contours with the odd climb over. We crossed many fields and chatted to many sheep and cattle.

If you’re an Australian or New Zealander you might have also been curious about so many sheep with tails. They mostly have full tails right to the ankles, or half to the knee. The other interesting thing is how many are not shorn. Instead they are shedding their wool all over the paddock. Self shearing!

I asked the local sages at the pub last night and they said it’s because it costs more for the farmers to get the sheep shorn than they get for the wool. These are bred for meat - but there has been no lamb on any menu here that I’ve seen and the sage said that if it’s on the menu it’s New Zealand lamb as Welsh lamb is too expensive! So much to unpack there!

I have carried a bag of sheep’s wool all the way from Australia as it’s my go-to treatment to avoid blisters. I would have been fine just collecting as I went, from the fields.

Llangollen is on the River Dee and judging from the number of people in the streets and the dozens white water kayaking past our window, it’s a popular spot for visitors. Llan means place with church and the gollen refers to the Saint Collen. We passed several disused slate mines and one small active one on the way here. A UNESCO world heritage listed canal flows through the town and I’m told there are barges still drawn by horses. We will go check it out now and I shall report back.

Report? It’s a lovely town! The Dee is a raging river. It’s got plenty of rapids which are keeping the action tourism going. We also went up (yes,up) to the canal. It must be 100m higher than the river and is a remarkable feat of engineering. Trees border it on both sides and there was constant traffic whoever watched. It’s great entertainment observing two boats trying to pass in such an impossibly narrow channel. Some women who were paddling inflatable kayaks got jammed between a boat and the side of the canal while we were there and were very shaken but not injured. I met the horses but they were being retired for the day from their boat pulling duties.

We had a nice beer in a pub hanging over the river, and then some good tapas. Now back in our room writing and getting ready for what looks like a very nice walk tomorrow.Read more