To 26th June 2019
Chatted to this lovely Dutch couple Jan and Hilly on our campsite in Hay-on-Wye. They even invited us to visit them if we ever get to Holland.
In the very quirky 50 seater theatre to watch Rocketman. Excellent.
A pleasant day and pleasant walk to Kington. 14.5 miles today. 
At the top of this ridge we came across a man training his horse for harness racing.
This hedge was covered in spiders webs!
We were expecting Aragog from Harry Potter to appappear.
The sun is shining.
Coming into Kington.
Straight into The Royal Oak for food and beverages. Before finding the campsite for hot showers and an early night.
Spent the morning getting 2 buses back to Pandy via Hereford to retrieve the car. Then found the Laundromat in Kington to do all our washing.
Had a wander around Kington- very nice.
Dinner in the Royal Oak again and caught up with Tony. An 80year Old Welsh guy from The valleys who was caught in Cyclone Tracy in Darwin in 1975. Had some great tales about his time in Australia. He remembers being in an isolated Road House near Mt Isa and the lady owner said to him “ you can have free beers all night if you just talk to me as you sound like Richard Burton!” David asked if she looked like Elizabeth Taylor! Alas no.
Kington campsite £16 per night. Think we put up in the wrong spot!
Omg! The sun is shining and it’s so hot in this tent- let’s get out. It’s a funny thing the tent-we can’t wait to get in it after a long days walk but even having slept well we can’t wait to get out of it to stretch in the morning.
Packed up and walked out of Kington to head for Knighton today - 14miles. A steep initial heart pumping climb up to Kington Golf Course- allegedly the highest golf course in England.
David has finally got his legs out. Walking along the Dyke was very obvious today.
We never know if we are in England or Wales as this path crosses the border at least 20 times!
Some parts of the path need a good strimming.
David and I always call these cheese wheels- as they always smell of cheese.
We watched for a while fascinated at how they roll and then wrap these cheese wheels-winter feed.
Walking into Knighton. It had been a long and hard day.
Stopped at the Offas Dyke headquarters to get our passport stamped. Had a couple of pints in the Green Dragon then into a shop for provisions as the next few sections are very isolated.
Walked to Panpunton campsite-basic but fine. The lady kept coming out to inform David how The Matilda’s were doing in the soccer.
David was very excited to wave at the single carriage train that comes past the campsite a couple of times a day.
Last night the forecast for today was a severe weather warning- Yellow alert for where we are heading! Should we be taking this book with us? From the campsite help yourself section! And we are heading for the toughest section of the whole trail!
A really hard climb out. Today Knighton to Brompton Bridge 15 miles of extreme walking so we are going to split it into 2.
Zoom in to see the 13 arches of theKnucklas viaduct built in 1865.
So many sheep we have seen. And this field was like snow everywhere as some farmers let them shed naturally as it costs £1 to shear one and they get less for the fleece at the moment! We spoke to one young farmer who had 700 head of sheep -he’s not making much money but just enjoys the life. We often wonder what sheep think about all day?? Have they got an opinion on Brexit for instance!?
It’s one o’clock and here comes the rain. Into a cow shed to get the wet weather gear on. I hadn’t tried my pants on for 4 years and struggled. It was like walking in a straight jacket for the rest of the day.
Jo looks really excited about being half way doesn’t she! Up to this point of the day we had done plenty of ups and downs and we had just about had enough. But with nowhere to stop and in this rain we just had to keep going.
Really steep paths of the Dyke.
Just as Jo was about to collapse we walked past a cottage in the middle of nowhere and out came Ray to ask if we were ok? When Jo said no he offered us his wood shed for the night. He then made us coffee and cake and told us to make ourselves at home! We gave him £15 donation for his hospice charity. I think Jo would’ve given him £150 if he had asked for it.
There were even 2 chairs to sit on-happy days.
Hung up all our wet gear and had a nice hot Bovril and scotch egg.
The mezzanine floor even had a piece of carpet to sleep on.
Worst thing is putting on wet boots in the morning 😖We don’t think Ray realised just how grateful we were for his kind offer. Thankfully by the morning the rain had gone but was foggy. Today was humid and couldn’t believe the amount of flies that were following us-worse than Oz. Maybe it was the smell of us!!!
Now we have at least 3 turned out to be 4 extremely steep climbs. I know we are carrying heavy packs that slow us down but we don’t know how people do this section in one day! It took us 13hours and the guide book told us 7-9hours-BOLLOCKS
Getting out passport stamped at Mellington Hall. Finally arrived at Brompton Bridge where there was no campsite or accommodation so we wanted to get the bus into Montgomery to get accommodation. Timed it beautifully, time for our sandwich before it arrived only to watch it go past as we were standing on the wrong side of the road! FUUUCCCKKK.
So there was no alternative but to walk Another 3.25miles to Montgomery. Thankfully a flat walk. The black and white building is The Dragon and we checked in for 2 nights. Montgomery looks really nice we will explore tomorrow.
A huge big bedroom our first bed in 8 nights. This room didn’t look like this for long once we had hung all our wet gear up! The hotel did a big bag of smelly laundry for us -only £5.
After a couple of beers and hot showers got some great fish n chips down the road.
Trying to dry out!
So glad we decided to have a day off the path as we woke up to torrential rain. We don’t care as we are in the dry and gives us time to catch up on this blog and relax a bit. In fact we have decided to stay a third night.
Spent a couple of hours doing a walking tour of Montgomery. Lovely town and would recommend it to anyone.
The ironmongers called Bunners was a rabbit warren of a hardware store and the family have owned it since 1892. We couldn’t stop thinking of the Two Ronnie’s Hardware sketch and had to watch it on UTube when we got back to the hotel- hilarious 😂
The Montgomery Castle. It was demolished after the civil war.
Later we walked down to the local brewery - Monty’s.
The weather is looking like summer is finally coming just hope it doesn’t get too hot for walking. Back on the path in the morning.
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