STAGE 2 - Day 9 - Knighton - Presteigne
At this point I am diverging from my dad's journey into one entirely of my own. Whilst he walked 250 miles over three stages around North Wales and Shropshire I am doubling his route to add three stages in South Wales. The first of these is a route my dad often talked about wanting to walk with his wife Kate but never had the chance - Ofda’s Dkye, the 1200 earth wall/ditch that marks the border of England and Wales, built to keep the Welsh in their place, just as Hadrian’s wall did for the Scots.
I am beginning from Knighton, and walking over the hills to Prestigne, but I am not alone today, I am joined by Kate, and Sheila who drove me to Knighton to begin this challenge. On the way we drove through the infamous Craven Arms and it did indeed look like a dump. Then finally, for the first time, 9 days into this trip of Wales, I actually entered Wales!
Kate is down for a few days staying with our good family friend Lindsay who drove to join us and found herself a locally spot to sit and paint whilst we walked.
We began in the middle of Knighton, a strange town, both charming and a little backwards, that is spread over a very hilly area. In fact it’s the hilliest town I’ve ever seen.
The path left Knighton and climbed up into the mountains. Higher up, we saw Offa’s Dyke itself, which followed the path for much of the way. Aside from an initial climb, this was an easy day of gentle rolling hills, meadows and pastures.
I saw lots of there mysterious circular dips along the way. The aren't marked on the map but I latter found out they were built by drovers who lined natural swamps with stones and clay which would then fill up with water to let their cattle drink from.
Walking through a crop field, I saw what I thought was a large black dog approaching from the far corner. It turned out to be a young calf seperated from its family in the neighbouring field and trying desperately to get back to them, so we put together a combined effort to save him. We ended up succeeding by herding him close to the gate and getting him through. He skipped in the air with joy at being back with his family again!
After picnicing on a log we carried on along the dyke all the way to the sweetly named Dolley Green, where Lindsey had her car waiting, and took us to Prestigne.
In Prestigne I checked into the 16th century Radnorshire Arms Hotel, had a walk around the town, spent a while chatting to some locals sat outside The Royal Oak (the second Royal Oak I’d been to in 3 days) then got a Chinese take away and ate it in my hotel room before retiring for the evening.
