It’s finished!

After almost 300 kilometres of every kind of terrain known to man, we have now completed Offa’s Dyke Path.

After a final 19 kilometre hike, we walked into Prestatyn on the Irish Sea. We arrived at 3:30 p.m., our earliest time so far. It would appear that we’re finally getting the hang of this walking thing, and now it’s done… Of course, I’m writing this with a multitude of aching body parts, so maybe it’s time for a rest.

It felt odd on this last day; knowing that tomorrow there would be no more woolly socks and boots to put on.

In a strange way, this whole thing was starting to feel like our new lifestyle. I’ve found myself waking up these last few days, thinking, “Oh good. We get to start walking.” Strange I know, but very true.

I’m going to miss the endless sheep and ever-so-curious cows. I’m going to miss meeting all the other walkers and talking to all the great B&B owners (like Sarah and Patrick at Tan-Yr-Onnen!) I’m going to miss thinking about nothing else but navigating to the next marker.

I’m not quite sure what we’ll do with ourselves, now that the whole day isn’t taken up with looking for the nearest signpost.

Which brings me to my only real complaint about this whole experience…the missing Offa’s Dyke Path markers.

It seems that some walkers think it’s their inherent right to rip off the markers and take them home as souvenirs. Considering the fact that these markers are key to knowing which direction to go, I can only hope there is a special nasty place for those people, that perhaps includes them being flagellated by a cascade of stolen way-markers until they’re rendered speechless and blue.

I’m not normally a vindictive person, but when I’m going the wrong way up a very steep meadow because some cretinous low-life took the Offa’s Dyke emblem, I start to feel a need for vengeance.

Luckily, we were never turned around for too long. Turns out it doesn’t matter if my untrained English tongue can’t quite wrap itself around the multi-syllabic Welsh words on the map, and if we were slightly off-the-path, all we had to do was look around and know that we were still in exactly the right place…

We are already planning our next walking holiday.