Today we left from Trefonen at just before 9 am and arrived in Llangollen at just before 7 pm. Ten hours of pounding the feet. Ten hours of spectacular views…
And if you’re wondering how to pronounce Llangollen? Think about a cat clearing a fur ball from his throat , “Th-lll!”
That is how those double ‘LL’s’ sound, like something in the back of your throat with a bit of a spitty enunciation. There is no equivalent sound in English.
After over a week of looking at the various Welsh signage, I know this…I could finally win a Scrabble game (with my inevitable tray full of only consonants) if I could just use Welsh words.
But back to the walking. We covered 27 kilometres yesterday. It was supposed to be 26 kms, but we missed a marker.
Today we did the full 27 km with no wrong turns at all. And if you read that quickly, it doesn’t sound like much.
And the most humbling thing about this trip has been meeting all the other regular walkers, where that really isn’t a big deal. Did I mention most of them are older than us? Though, in our defence, all of them take rest days and they are quite taken aback that we would do the whole Path with no time off.
We shared a pub meal with three fellow walkers last night and were amazed at all the regular long rambles they take. In fact, most of them belong to The Ramblers association, but in spite of all the regular walking they do, they still break up a trip and make sure they take time off in between the long distances.
Knowing this, if I were to advise anyone who was thinking of doing this trek, that is something I would definitely recommend…take a day off in the middle of the trip and just let your body crash and regroup. There is something quite draining from the cumulative effects of endless walking.
We have now covered about 225 kilometres in ten days. As I write this, I have a bag of ice on my left ankle while Kevin has his left knee wrapped in another towel full of ice. We will continue to switch up the icing of body parts and hope that we can survive, the next – and last – three days of walking.
The plan is to rest on the 14th day.
I remember so well when we first met (14 years ago). You wanted to take a photo of us and we let you, then we met again near Chepstow Castle. We stayed in a B&B near Montgomery and then carried on our separate way. It was a chance in a million that we met but I am so glad that we did.
Life is full of so many chance encounters. I’m so glad meeting you was one of them.
Inquiring minds want to know – does Welsh Scrabble come with extra “L”s?
I can’t imagine what Welsh scrabble would come with…it would certainly have to have a rule that you had more than seven tiles
I don’t know, Colleen, that top photo looks an awful lot like a “path.” Are you sure this is as hard as you’ve been saying?
Busted! It’s simply a walk in the park
In fact, that’s what I keep telling myself when my knees want to quit…”We’re just going for a walk. We’re just walking.”