June 19, 2010: Meifod to Welshpool

Again we enjoyed breakfast at 8:00; our lunches were waiting for us now as well – landladies had all been very good in this category on this trip; you hate to wait around for your lunch when it is time to get a move on. Mrs. Breeze, hearing us talk about the absence of steep up and down yesterday, now added that this would not be true of the terrain today. At least weather prospects had improved by the time we made our departure at 8:45. Mr. Breeze droves us back to the store in Meifod. Tosh bought her Independent here but Mr. Breeze refused to take on the sections she was discarding – as though to do so would cause the spread of an alien infection. We were able to start our last day of walking at 8:58 exactly.

We turned left at the end of our street and then left again on the Guilsfield road. Here we encountered yet another chapel, though this one had been modernized in its conversion to private residence. Tennis courts and a bowling green followed as we now crossed the Broniarth Bridge, again over the Afon Vyrnwy. We continued with the road and a second one that turned left to parallel the river. Eventually a track appeared on the right and we were able to begin the first of the day’s many ascents. We were deep in woods here, rising gradually, leaving one surface for the next as we continued up a flank of Broniarth Hill in an easterly direction. At last we escaped the forest to continue over fields, with a fence on our right. Electricity poles were the next clue as we continued our climb, always searching out the next waymark post on the horizon.

Down on our left we could now see a small lake, Llyn Du, and after reaching roadway at last we began a lengthy section on tarmac, with nice views of the lake on our right. Once I paused to photograph some resplendent lupines in a wayside planter. At the Bryndial Cottages Margie stayed behind to adjust her footwear and Tosh and I continued to plod uphill without the menace of any traffic. Views of the Banwy Valley were now available on the right but skies were still rather overcast. We reached another road junction and took a right fork, beginning a steep descent. At last, almost behind us, a stile promised an escape from tarmac. I stumbled as I crossed this obstacle and fell forward heavily on my stomach.

“I’m all right,” I told the others, righting myself for progress on tracks that gradually left woodland behind and entered more agricultural surroundings. We passed the ruins of Ty Newydd and continued gently uphill, following a fence and a hedge. Tosh wanted to pause for a snack so we sat down and I ate an apple. Further progress, once we had resumed our march, was more problematic. The guidebook has us approach some buildings in our search for a gate into an enclosed lane –– but we soon ran out of waymarks, could see no lane, and further progress along the hedges to the east of the farm offered no solution. I called for a retreat (not wanting to penetrate the farm itself through an unmarked gate) – following the hedges very closely and in this fashion I at last spotted the missing gate, deep in the shadows.

We passed through this opening, turned right, passed the restored buildings of Cefn-pentre and crossed another stile. I told Tosh that on several occasions the text of the guidebook had raced ahead of the page with the relevant OS map and this was one of those instances. After a few more stiles we reached an open rising field where the path was indicated by a narrow green strip in the chaff. This lead uphill to the margins of a wood. Here the path continued among the trees on the northern edge but Tosh was correct to abandon this eroded surface in favor of more walking along the edge of the field. I persevered on the path, ducking under a number of low boughs before joining her. Now the sun was firmly established in the sky and we had lovely weather for the rest of the day.

A set of steps brought us down to a roadway where a couple from a nearby caravan were walking two ancient dogs. We remained with the roadway as it climbed in a southerly direction. I told the others to keep their eyes peeled for a waymark on our left, and when they found this we were able to enter the dark confines of Kennel Wood. Rough trails gave way to tracks and, without too many ups and downs, we continued in an easterly direction, with views of a valley on our left. Eventually we located a roadway and followed a right-hand option steeply uphill. We were definitely in caravan country hereabouts and our road now swung to the right to reach the entrance to Hidden Valley Chalet Park. The area seemed to be undergoing some form of modernization –“You can tell it’s all becoming gentrified,” I told the others, “they’ve removed the advertised cattle grid.”

Our road now reached a junction with a second – and across the street we could see Stonehouse Farm. We turned right for another mile of road walking, first in a southwest direction and then, after a turnoff, onto to a more easterly one. At the corner kids were playing in what had once been a schoolyard. Their building had also undergone a change of use, however, for now they did b&b here. Tosh, by this time, was agitating for a lunch break and I told her that we would sit down as soon as we could escape tarmac. Finally our road began a descent to the left and here we were invited to cross a stile. At the top of a steep hill, with extensive views to the south (including this afternoon’s headland, Y Golfa), we sat down and tucked into our sandwiches. After three days of ham salad I had switched my sandwich choice to cheese and pickle. We had covered half of our distance and it was shortly after 1:00 when we sat down.

We did not linger for long in the warm sunshine and soon I was leading a steep descent down the hillside, hunting for waymarks and landmarks among the trees and bushes and at last reaching a road in the valley bottom. Our route followed tracks and paths in scrubland as we gradually worked our way west along the bottom margins of an extensive patch of forest, Figyn Wood. A waymark post directed us to make a sharp left turn here and this also signaled the beginning of an extremely steep section. I suspect that there had been some harvesting in this woodland for the shade was by no means universal and one of the targets I gave myself, as I paused to pant in my slow progress uphill, was the next patch of shade.

Eventually we reached a summit and left the wood behind for a brief bit of cross-country, soon reaching another wooded spot. This one, managed by the Woodland Trust, was called Graig Wood and it was evident that much of the territory was being left to regenerate naturally. After a brief period in the deep shadows we were directed down to a roadway where, once again, a diversion from the original route was set to begin. I had copied the details of this diversion into the guidebook and I thought I could perhaps see the rights of way we were now to use on the OS map – but we were now in for an exercise in frustration!

Things started well enough as we turned right on the road and walked for 200 meters to the west. There was also an encouraging waymark that introduced us to a route that crossed the bottom of a valley. Waymarking was offered but some of the transitions seemed to be rather improvised. At one point Tosh let slip a barbwire encrusted gatepost and it smacked into my right hand. Unfortunately the notes provided by Celtic Trails provided no sense of distance or gradient and when we reached an unmarked gate in the valley bottom we were already looking for a minor road that was still some distance ahead of us. I decided we just had to persevere in the same direction and as we began another steep bit of uphill a waymark post brightened our mood considerably.

The road reached at last, we crossed a meadow and entered another stretch of woodland. Again there was some doubt over which track to follow amid construction machinery, but we guessed right and at last reached the lower boundary of Welshpool’s extensive golf course. We were at the end of the diversion but I would not say that route-finding matters were much improved. To begin with we now had another steep bit of uphill, following a track through bracken. As we climbed up to a waymarked but open gate we were again misled by the guidebook instruction that we were to “descend to a waymark post, that beckons you to veer left.” We could see no waymark post from this point and we entered the hillside below us, searching for any sign of a post. I eventually called another retreat, returning us to the gate and, this time remaining on the original side of the fence, continuing forward (not much of a descent) until, indeed, the promised waymark post appeared in front of us.

Then we made progress along a somewhat marshy track through scrubland before returning our attention to the hillside above us, scrambling up in stages while we could hear the whistling report of three successive tee-shots somewhere over on our right. There were a number of golfers about; they travelled along the tracks in covered carts: they must have thought us quite mad but then we had a low opinion of their form of exercise as well. We travelled along the crest of the hill in an easterly direction for some time, guided by a series of waymark posts – with one of them finally ordering a right turn for a final scramble up to the summit of Y Golfa itself. Here we had a 360 degree panorama, a wonderful viewpoint – but our eyes were directed mostly toward the indented eastern horizon for here we would find our destination, Welshpool itself.

It was now almost 4:00 and I was beginning to worry about the lateness of the hour. I had phoned ahead to our last host, Mr. Emberton, advising an arrival between 5:00 and 6:00. But I was hoping for time to visit a Welspool pub and perhaps to venture as far as the train station, where Margie might try again to purchase a senior rail pass. We still had three miles to go but I felt we would have a good chance to make it all in good time if the terrain and the walking surfaces were congenial. They were; in fact we had nothing but downhill and level stretches left.

We left our hilltop on tracks through the bracken, following ridgetop routes that passed through low woodland and along the edges of forestry. Our progress from field to field was facilitated by a number of stiles – with the latter making a late but unsuccessful attempt to pull even with gates: today’s final score was gates 13, stiles 11. Eventually we reached trackway and this brought us by a number of charming buildings and their ponds. The surface of the track received a coat of tarmac as we neared the posh environs of Llanerchydol Home Farm and Hall – you know the region is becoming gentrified when there are speed bumps on the roadway. We were now getting up a corking pace (I could feel a little blister tugging at the back of my left heel), facilitated by the downhill sections of the road. At just about 5:00 we passed above a steam railway station on our right, turned right on a main road and reached a roundabout on Welshpool’s western border.

It wasn’t easy getting across this barrier but drivers stopped for us. We bypassed the Raven Inn across the street and took to the pavement of Raven (later Mount) Street. The town was busy on a Saturday afternoon and we passed many pubs and shops (and lots of closed premises too) as we made our way up to a set of traffic lights. I knew our route would pass the Royal Oak and I wanted to stop here for the Lees and the Linicks had been here once before – at the end of a three day walk on Offa’s Dyke Path in 1988. Then we had taken seats outside; today we sat next to the posh bar of this hotel and began a round of congratulatory photography. I had a wonderful cool pint of lager and Tosh showered the table with peanuts. It was 5:15.

I told Tosh that the official end of the path was no more than a five-minute walk. She was very anxious to get out of her boots and refused to believe me, but after a few minutes we resumed our stroll, using the pavement to reach the bridge over the Montgomery Canal in two minutes. Here, in a little picnic area on the grass below the bridge, we located a commemorative stone marking the end of Glyndwr’s Way. We had walked eleven miles today, 53.5 on this trip and a total of 137.5 since leaving Knighton in 2008.

More photos were taken and we called Mr. Emberton to announce our arrival. In the ten minutes or so it took him to reach us we managed to get some of the muck off our boots with sticks and stones. We asked Mr. Emberton if he could swing by the nearby train station but he said that when the woollen mill had taken over the old station Welshpool had become nothing more than a long halt – with no ticket office at all. On our ride back through the town Mr. Emberton told us that three closed pubs had re-opened in Welshpool, and this seemed good news. His Twnllwyn Farm establishment is a mile or so north of town and we were soon unloading our gear amid quite posh surroundings. In rooms in the main house itself plus a series of cottages nearby Mr. Emberton could accommodate over thirty people. We never saw Mrs. Emberton and the only sign of the pony-obsessed eleven year-old Amy was a hockey stick on the gravel.

We each had our own rooms again and at 6:40 we went to Margie’s room to finish off the last of the booze we had carried with us since Pont Llogel. We were the only diners in the large tall-ceilinged dining room. (There was a party of nine about, here to attend some car rally, but they ate in one of the town pubs.) We had chicken in white wine sauce and some white wine to go with it. Again the sustaining veg was also delicious and there was a choice of desserts. Margie had no sweet; you could tell that the diet we had been on these last five days was far richer than she found comfortable (she avoids eggs, cheese and red meat as a rule). On the beautiful lawn outside the dining room window a squirrel was digging holes for his nuts.

We went upstairs at about 8:00 and I read and listened to my Ipod for a while. I was soon asleep but I think I woke again well after midnight and read some more. We had a late breakfast at 9:00 (no eggs for Margie); the squirrel was back at work, ruining the lawn. In my room I packed up, bringing everything downstairs at 10:30 and working some more outside on my boots. It was again a beautiful morning and the distant views and the flowers in bloom at our feet made a lovely final vision for our trip.

Mr. Emberton drove us to the station, where we had a fifteen-minute wait for our Arriva train to Birmingham New Street. Again we had reserved seats and this time we were actually able to sit in them. I did a puzzle and read some more articles. We had been assigned separate carriages on the train that took us to Euston. I found my reserved seat and here I ate some of the leftover snacks I had accumulated in my lunch sacks. Several passengers insisted that interlopers move from their reserved seats and this is how I ended up with a large francophone black woman on my right. We reach Euston about 2:20 and I said goodbye to my loyal walking companions (Tosh already advising me to start looking for a suitable route for next year). I had no wait for a taxi in the basement and I was soon on the way home. I was tired of course, but I could be quite well satisfied with my energy levels and my physical performance on this trip. Of course, with Fritz still away, the house did seem particularly empty.

Footpath Index:

England: A Chilterns Hundred | The Chiltern Way | The Cleveland Way | The Coast-to-Coast Path | The Coleridge Way | The Cotswold Way | The Cumberland Way | The Cumbria Way | The Dales Way | The Furness Way | The Green London Way | The Greensand Way | The Isle of Wight Coast Path | The London Countryway | The London Outer Orbital Path | The Norfolk Coast Path | The North Downs Way | The Northumberland Coast Path | The Peddars Way | The Pennine Way | The Ridgeway Path | The Roman Way | The Saxon Shore Way | The South Downs Way | The South West Coast Path | The Thames Path | The Two Moors Way | The Vanguard Way | The Wealdway | The Westmorland Way | The White Peak Way | The Yorkshire Wolds Way