Finishing off Offa's walk ... Day 1

Sunday, the 18th April 2010, and we were back in Wales, hoping to complete my journey along the Offa's Dyke Path.

We had a problem though as I thought I'd finished last time a bit further north than I had done. So half an hour was spent getting to the right starting place.

We were soon rising up the path leading to Moel Famau [pronounced, I believe, Moil Vamow] ~ feel free to correct me if you know better.

Looking back the hills stretched away into the distance ... hills I had walked some time ago ...

Being a Sunday there were quite a few people walking up Moel Famau, some in flat shoes which weren't the most appropriate things to wear.

We stopped to admire the view and catch our breath ...



Having caught our breath we pressed on ... towards the remains of the Jubilee Tower atop Moel Famau ...

Once upon a time the tower, which was built to mark the golden jubilee of George III, stood 150 feet high until a storm reduced it somewhat. There's an interesting video clip here and, despite an idiosyncracy or two, it's worth watching ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twgYM2WhCIs ... [there's a bit of a surprise at the end so bear with it].

The path leads to Moel Dywyll and as we went we noticed how strips of heather had been cleared on the hillside ....

... and, looking back, a last glimpse of the ruins of Jubilee Tower ...



In fact we were to see Jubilee Tower for at least another two or three days but we didn't know that then.

As we got further from the car park, we got further from the crowd ...

There had been very little sun and as the wind got up we sat on a couple of stones on the leeside of a wall ... and had a coffee whilst admiring the rusting ironwork nearby.

It was originally part of the barbed wire fence.

At this point we had started to think about getting back to the car park so we took a bridleway running across the lower slopes of Moel Dywyll and started to descend ...

We passed a small reservoir with a single fisherman trying his luck ...

Presumably he was a member of the Cilcain Fly Fishing Association ...

We followed Bridleway No. 69 in the parish of Cilcain, admiring the daffodils as we went. Somebody had been busy.

Another bridleway started us on the climb back up the hill towards the car park, still some miles away ...

It was round about this point that time became more of a consideration. We'd noticed that the car park closed at 6pm and we obviously didn't want to get locked in.

We took one of the forestry tracks, relying on them to get us to the car park sooner rather than later.

Now I would have thought at some point or another there might be a map showing just where these forestry tracks lead you ... there wasn't.

We wound into and out of three side valleys below Moel Famau.

Time was passing ...

Our walking speed picked up ...

As we finally neared the car park [and after some ten miles] I broke into a run ... with a heavyish rucksack on my back ... and got there with four minutes to spare ...

... only to find that the car park isn't locked up at 6pm at all ... or at least not until much later.

Still, it made for an exciting end to the walk. Would we recover enough for the next day though ?

Date of walk ~ 18th April 2010

Length of walk ~ 10 miles

Total walked so far in 2010 ~ 75.75 miles

Total walked since 1st September 2009 ~ 205.75 miles

16 of 2010