Day 41 Carmarthen to Kidwelly (14.4 miles, cumulative 690.1)

....and on the forty-first day IT RAINED! Persistent showers, not the drenching type, but enough to get you quite damp. I dusted down my waterproofs and reflected on how lucky I had been to walk 675 miles from Chester without needing them.

During a heavier shower, I managed to find a newly painted village shelter to pull out my rucksack cover and to protect my phone from the rain.

Most of today's walk was along quiet country lanes. One exception was around a derelict farm, where direction signs were missing and parts of the route were heavily overgrown. I descended to the village of Ferryside, where the railway station shelter provided a dry place to eat lunch.

Without notice, the rain stopped and the sun came out for a short spell. By the time I'd climbed the hill to my farmhouse accommodation, I was just about dry.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 59 Newcastle in Clun to Welshpool (18.9 miles, cumulative 999.7)

Image
Apologies to the people trying to contact me yesterday - I had no wifi or phone reception at my B&B. Today's weather forecast was more rain. I feel as if I'm being punished for the endless weeks of sun I enjoyed earlier in my journey.  My B&B neighbour kindly gave me a lift back to the start of the footpath. I made very slow progess during the morning, walking just six miles in three hours. This was due to a steep climb at the start, then the infamous Switchbacks, a series of successive steep ascents and descents, which were even more challenging in wet conditions.  I commented yesterday about the stiles being replaced by gates. This clearly has not happened in the northern section of Offa's Dyke, where stiles are dominant, many in a poor state of repair. This only added to today's workload. From midday there were frequent heavy rain showers, so I added more items to my growing collection of wet clothes. Fortunately my hotel in Welshpool has a heated...
Read more

Day 63 Bodfari to Prestatyn (12.2 miles, cumulative 1,071.2) FINISHED!

Image
The last day! Shelley drove Gordon and me to the start of today's walk and I set off for the final time. We started with a long ascent, then zig-zagged our way through fields, moorland, woodland and country lanes, dodging some heavy showers on two occasions. Then Prestatyn came into view from above and we gradually descended into civilisation.  After 1,071 miles in 62 days, 4 hours and 45 minutes, I reached the end of my journey at the coast, having walked the perimeter of Wales. What an adventure! There are so many memories - 40 days of amazing weather, followed by a fair dose of rain, spectacular scenery, meeting interesting people en route for a few minutes or a few days, visits from family and friends, super accommodation, countless lasagne and chips dinners, steep hills, secluded bays, stunning cliffs, reliable trains and buses...... My body has coped admirably, with no injuries, no blisters, and no Covid. I've lost about a stone in weight during the journey. U...
Read more
Image
It's just over one month before the start of my big walking adventure around the entire border of Wales. This trip has been in the planning for so long, with the original walk due to take place in 2020, that it feels surreal finally to have reached this stage. The overall distance (1,050 miles) will be around 100 miles more than my last major walk between John O' Groats and Land's End (JOGLE) back in 2013. However, there will be significant differences in the two journeys: 1. The Walk Around Wales will follow just two defined footpaths - the Wales Coast Path and Offa's Dyke Path, whereas JOGLE offered complete freedom in the choice of route between the start and finish points. 2. The Walk Around Wales route will pass through dozens of coastal resorts, hopefully thronging with tourists willing to part with their cash by donating to my Cancer Research UK fundraising. In contrast, most of my JOGLE route passed through rural areas, so I had minimal human contact for long se...
Read more