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Link to part 6:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=38158_____________
Edale to Knighton, WalesWoke up quite hungover; but otherwise feeling refreshed after a day off celebrating the end of the Pennine Way with Richard. With relief I noticed that my ankle seemed to have recovered as well and was excited about the next step in my journey. After a solid breakfast, Richard joined me for a bit up towards Mam Tor, where we said our goodbyes. Looking down the hill towards what lay ahead I felt a real surge of energy.
For the first time in over two weeks I had no idea what lay ahead of me. As much as I had enjoyed the Pennine Way, despite some tough parts and as helpful as it had been to have a guidebook, it had taken the adventure out of it a bit. Full of motivation, I headed down the hill towards unknown territory. The weather kept changing between sunshine, rain and hailstones, but I didn’t care, the views were fantastic and the path was very comfortable to walk. After reaching Castleton, I joined the Limestone Way, which I would be following for a while.
After a long days walk, I had initially planned to sleep outside, but getting quite soaked throughout the day I stopped at a B&B. in Priestcliffe. The owners were extremely friendly and offered to wash my clothes for me. I must have looked a bit disheartened when I asked them where I could find some food in the area and they told me the nearest pub was several miles away as they immediately offered me to join them for dinner… which I gladly accepted
The following day the weather had finally picked up and I had another thoroughly enjoyable day walking across pastures, through valleys and countless of the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. For the first time, I had to swap out my beanie hat for my touristy sunhat too!
I stopped at a pub in Biggin, according to my map this was the last opportunity for a while to get some hot food. The portions were massive and I ended up staying a bit too long, enjoying a few pints and reading my kindle when I looked out the window and realised the sun had started to set. I quickly paid, grabbed my stuff and headed out towards the Biggin Dale. I was confident I would find a nice spot to bivvy somewhere along the way.
According to my gps, I would come across a few caves and I always liked the idea of spending a night in a cave. I ventured into some of them, but they were either flooded or the more accessible ones were sadly covered in broken glass from selfish idiots using them as party locations, so I had to give up on that idea.
By now, it was pitch black and I just threw my bivvy bag down near a river and got ready to sleep.
It was a very comfortable dry and warm night and I slept in quite a bit until I got woken up by a loud noise. Confused, I put my glasses on, looked up and saw a hot air balloon flying by just above me. Beats getting woken up by a horrible alarm clock! In daylight, I finally saw where I had spent the night and was pretty happy with my camp spot.
Feeling rested, I packed up camp and continued following the dale.
After a good start to the walk, it started to rain quite a lot again and walking became quite uncomfortable through endless muddy fields. I also got quite hungry as I didn’t come across any shops or pubs, so the 4 KitKat chunkys I had bought in the pub the night before was the only food I had all day. Exhausted, wet and starving, I cut my walk short after about 25km and stopped at a B&B in Ellastone. There was no cash machine anywhere in the area and I was extremely lucky to have JUST enough cash on me to pay for the B&B. With no money left and nowhere to get any food, I resigned myself to go to bed hungry but the, yet again, very friendly owners brought me a tray with a couple of large sandwiches and told me I could help myself to anything from the breakfast table, free of charge! Amazing! It saved me from having to dig into my emergency ration of pistachios, which really would have made for quite a lacklustre dinner after a hard day. Thanks to their generosity and knowing I crossed the 1000km milestone this day, I went to bed feeling really happy.
The following day started off with more rain, for a change, but the weather picked up over the course of the day. I managed to find a shop where I could stock up on some food and get cashback in Rocester. Once the sun came out, it was quite nice walking past endless colourful rape fields.
After walking across a clay pigeon shooting range, I had to walk through a rape field and ended up covered in pollen. To my surprise I had no reaction whatsoever to it, no hay fever, no asthma attack, nothing…I suddenly realised that I hadn’t had any hay fever issues so far whereas in the past I couldn’t leave the house without a box of tissues around this time of the year! I stopped for a while and took a few deep breaths, for the first time since I can remember enjoying the smell of nature, flowers, plants without immediately worrying about a sneeze attack and breathlessness! Not really sure what has happened, but all that time living outdoors must have really boosted my immune system, sweet!!
Happy about this discovery I continued on, following the Staffordshire Way. It was quite a pleasant walk apart from the ridiculous amount of stiles. Usually I don’t mind stiles too much, but when your legs are tired and sore, with a big backpack they can get tedious when you continually have to climb over them.
I planned to stop in Abbots Bromley, a really neat looking village, as my feet were getting quite sore, but all accommodation was ridiculously overpriced, so I continued on towards Colton. By now my feet were getting really quite bad and it started to rain again as well, so I took a shortcut over a private road along a reservoir.
I nearly made it all the way across when a guy drove up to me and asked what I was doing and told me it was private land. I told him what I was doing, where I wanted to go and that I was really just trying to avoid a long detour around the reservoir as I was tired and sore. He became a lot friendlier and even told me where the best spot would be to jump over the fence and get back on track on the other side. I was just glad he let me continue on and dreaded the thought of having to go back and take the long route round. I stopped at the first accommodation I came across in Colton, didn’t think I could walk much further that day. It was unfortunately a hotel and still a bit pricey but a lot cheaper than anything in Abbots Bromley, so I didn’t care too much. When I took my boots off, I noticed that one of my little toes was completely numb, didn’t think much about it and went to bed.
The morning after, I had forgotten about my sore feet until I got out of bed and put my full weight on them, promptly falling over and landing on the floor. On top of that, my toe was still numb. It was a bit disconcerting but there was nothing I could do about it and just planned to keep an eye on it, as long as it didn’t swell up or go funny colours, I figured it would probably be ok. I didn’t really like this cotton wool feeling my feet but on the bright side, at least on that toe I didn’t feel the blisters anymore which were still haunting me all the time. Over the following weeks, two more toes would follow and remain permanently numb. I knew I needed a day off but this hotel was too expensive to stay for another day, so over breakfast I got my phone out and looked for other options. I found a very cheap but nice looking farmhouse B&B just 23km away, booked a room for two nights and set off. It was a rather nice and easy path, mostly following canals and through forests but the sore feet made for slow progress.
I was a bit worried seeing that my destination, Penkridge, was on the other side of the M6 motorway and I had no clue yet how I would get across. To my relief there was an underpass and I reached the B&B shortly afterwards.
I was quite amazed when I saw my accommodation, at nearly half the price of my previous hotel room, I had a large kitchen, living room, bathroom and 2 bedrooms all to myself. Best of all, it had a washing machine! I was getting really quite bored of hand washing my clothes in sinks!
I got breakfast served in my living room and planned to spend my day of on the couch with my feet up, recovering and reading. There wasn’t really anything to do in the area anyway. In the afternoon the farmer knocked on the door and asked if I wanted to see his farm. Of course I gladly accepted his offer, but I was also dreading a bit to walk around the farm as my feet were still pretty sore. Luckily it involved driving around as his farm was gigantic and walking around it would take all day. Don’t think I have ever seen such a big farm and it was quite interesting to see what he had done with the various parts of his land. One section he was renting out to a group running a paintball club. We spent quite a bit of time there chatting to them, they really liked my story and offered me free food
Once we got back, I did another load of washing and went back to relaxing and reading.
Feeling recovered again, I got going after breakfast. After a muddy farm track, I made my way into Penkridge, looking for a cash machine and a shop to stock up on supplies. I made really good progress, following easy paths across farm land and endless maize fields.
For the first time it was warm enough to wear only my t-shirt and I had a great day, enjoying the sunshine. In the afternoon I switched back to my long sleeve though to avoid sunburn. Often lacking opportunities to wash, I didn’t want to start using greasy sun lotion.
With the nice weather came a new problem though, I was sweating a lot more and for the first time I ran out of water, having gone through my 2L camelbag and my two 500ml bottles. I started to feel quite dehydrated and none of the small villages I came through seemed to have any shops where I could refill my water but luckily I found a petrol station after a while. I had planned to sleep outdoors, but everywhere I went was farmland, so I made a detour into Shifnal, looking for a B&B.
After rejoining my original route, I followed the Monarch’s Way into Coalbridge. Even though it was still morning, the sun was out and the heat made walking hard going. I stopped at a youth hostel for a few drinks and ice cream before following a beautiful path along the river Severn into Ironbridge, an old industrial town, full of museums and history.
From the town centre my path led me back into the forest, past some more remnants of the industrial revolution. At least I found some shade there and made good progress towards Much Wenlock. Despite the forest blocking out most of the sun, I still struggled with the heat and ran out of water again before I reached Much Wenlock. I would need to start carrying more water! I really wanted to sleep outdoors in this nice weather, so I looked up a campsite. When the owner heard I didn’t even have a tent, he only charged me half price and offered to watch over my stuff while I went back into town to find a pub for some dinner. When I came back from the pub, I had a shower and set up my bivvy, getting some quite strange looks from the other residents. I guess my bivvy did look a bit out of place between the campervans… My only worry was that late arrivals may not see my camouflaged bivvy in the dark and park their caravan on top of me, so I placed all my gear between the road and me, so at least they would hit my backpack first…
Finally, a really good night’s sleep, it remained warm, dry and I got to watch a clear sky full of stars while falling asleep. In the morning I stopped by at the local shop and stocked up on plenty of water, stuffing an additional 1L bottle in my backpack as I wanted to wild camp again and not having to worry about finding another shop in between. It was another scorching but beautiful day, following mostly the Shropshire Way. Most of the route led through a thin strip of forest,
which was nice as it provided at least some shade.
I thought I would make use of this weather and try out my solar power phone charger for the first time. With the help of some gorilla tape, I attached it to my backpack and wandered on.
When it hadn’t charged even a bit by the end of the day I decided to cut down on some weight and throw it in the next bin.
I really wanted to spend a night sleeping in the forest, so I cut my day a bit short and stopped before the forest ended. I just left the path and looked for the first flat area sheltered from the sight of people walking along the path. It was really enjoyable lying in my sleeping bag reading my kindle for the rest of the evening until it got dark. While getting ready to sleep, I really enjoyed watching two squirrels play around in the branches just above me. They seemed to quite a lot of fun throwing things at me!
It was really pleasant being woken up by the sounds of loads of different birds chirping away all around me. I felt great after such a comfortable night, packed up my gear and set off. Checking my map I realised I had stopped really quite early the previous day and it was still quite a bit further to Knighton than I had hoped, but I was determined to reach Knighton as reaching Wales felt like completing another major milestone in my journey. Already early in the day, it was very hot despite a thick layer of fog, making it quite damp and uncomfortable to walk in.
It didn’t take long til I was covered in sweat. I stopped in Craven Arms for some breakfast and restocking my water supplies.
Checking the map again over breakfast, I realised I wouldn’t make it to Knighton until later in the day and called ahead to book a room. The cheapest I could find was actually renting out a small cottage, which I booked for two days.
I followed country roads for quite a while which was a bit dull until the path finally started leading up some hills. It was nice going uphill again, the last few days have been pretty flat. Instantly the views improved and the whole scenery changed quite a bit the closer I got to Wales.
Going uphill in this heat was really tiring though and I went through my water supplies a lot quicker than expected. I regretted not refilling again along the way when I ran out of water long before reaching my destination. The last miles were really hard going and I was getting quite a headache from dehydration.
The stunning views helped to keep going though until I finally reached Knighton.
I stopped at the first shop and stocked up on water, chocolate milk, beer and jaffa cakes before looking for my cottage. This one turned out to be very nice, small but cozy. I put my clothes in the washing machine and relaxed in front of the tv for the rest of the evening.
I had to cook my own breakfast in the morning, but my hosts had provided me with all the required ingredients. Making breakfast and eating it in the garden was very enjoyable and relaxing, I ended up spending pretty much the entire day sitting there reading and drinking tea.
In the evening I briefly ventured into town to pick up a take away pizza, I had a proper craving for pizza! I felt fantastic, having completed another major milestone in my journey and was very much looking forward to walking along Wales, especially having seen how much the scenery had improved already over the last few miles! At 1184km so far I should also be about half-way!
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Link to part 8:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=39013