W7 - Kington to Knighton

Summary
Kington has a walking festival on the 3rd week of Sept. I just hope they improve the number of food outlets because there wasn't a lot to chose from - Thank goodness for the Oxford Arms and its home cooking (£10 for a steak and a pint). The morning to Knighton starts almost immediately with a 200 metre climb. The views at the top are spectacular and guess what, we found the Dyke again. In fact we found a lot of the Dyke - it must have been massive is 800AD.

Longer version
Amazingly after a rather huge climb out of Kington, we came across this herd of cows at the top of the hill. We didn't think the grazing was particularly good but they were very inquisitive and wanted to see us so I thought they deserved a photo 😃 Close up, cows are surprisingly large - probably why they create 16% of all carbon dioxide emissions.

Soon after the cows we got lost 😕 Generally the Offa's Dyke Path is very well sign-posted. But when we neared Herrock Hill we got into a fern infested steep hillside. It is quite scary when the ferns are bigger than you and you cannot see the path. We spent what felt like an hour getting out of the hill.

The Dyke in this part of the world is very prominent - 18 feet plus. It feels a bit strange walking on it but given the thing is full of rabbit / badger holes plus a lot of trees, I cannot imagine the odd walker is going to do any damage. Not many countries would treat a 1,200 year old monument this way however.

Andrea eroding the Dyke








It is very much a day of walking up and down. Most of the climbs are not too bad and the views at the top were very good. They have missed a trick however - there is no explanation of what you are seeing.



Also unlike the Coast to Coast the whole route does not go near any town, villages or farms that offer any tea or cake. Perhaps there are too few walkers but all the way from Kington to Knighton there wasn't a single place to buy anything - cheap holiday however.

Comments

  1. LenAugust 20, 2018 at 1:05 AM

    Cows produce more methane out through their mouths than farting - I'm not entirely sure how or why I know that. It's probably taking up valuable space in my brain.

    As for respect for ancient monuments, we're doing alright. Whilst on a holiday to Turkey we visited a variety of ancient monuments there. Whilst visiting the ruins of a lesser known roman town, the highlight of which was it's amphitheatre, there was a scrambler motorbike hacking over the ruins of the surrounding town. Old roman baths, streets, shops and this buffoon on a motorbike zipping about.

    It was very sad.

    Fear ye not about whatever damage your soft rubber boots may be doing to the Dyke. You're not on scrambler motorbikes ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownAugust 20, 2018 at 9:37 AM

      Thank you Len: although at times a scrambler motorbike would be extremely useful and tempting :-)

      Delete

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