Day: 048
Date: Monday, 18 July 2022
Start: Knighton
Finish: Kington
Daily Kilometres: 26
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1344
Weather: Very warm and mostly sunny.
Accommodation: Cabin
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Egg mayonnaise rolls
Lunch: Tuna mayonnaise sandwich/Ham & cheese sandwich.
Dinner: Lasagne & vegetables, icecream
Aches: Dave - the usual few niggles. Julie - sore feet (from her walking shoes, which she should probably throw out).
Highlight: After our climb out of Knighton, and before it got too warm, we had a beautiful hour of walking along a broad ridge, mostly across open fields, with wonderful views over the River Lugg valley to the west.
Lowlight: We had been unable to get accommodation right in Kington (we prefer accommodation within easy walking of grocery stores and take-out food shops) so had to settle for a cabin 1.5 kilometres south of town and not on our route. On arrival in Kington, we stopped at a supermarket and bought dinner supplies and drinks, and then had a very warm roadwalk with an extra few kilos in our packs to our accommodation that we could have done without.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
Originally, we had planned to walk 45 kilometres to Hay-on-Wye today and then have tomorrow off in that interesting town. However, last week, when the first warnings about a UK heatwave for today and tomorrow began to be issued, we changed our plans and decided to split the journey in two and dispense with the day off. So, we set off today with just a 23 kilometre walk planned to the village of Kington (turned out to be a bit further) and didn’t leave until 8:30am, giving Julie time to go for a run before we left.
We first walked into Knighton, and Wales, stopping to buy supplies for the day, and then joined the Offa’s Dyke Path, a UK National Trail, which we will follow for the next five days. Knighton is about the halfway point of the whole trail which pretty much follows the Welsh border north to south from the Liverpool Bay to the River Severn, so we are only walking the southern half. Offa’s Dyke is an earthwork ditch and wall, presumably defensive, constructed on the orders of Offa, the King of Mercia in the 8th Century, to mark the border between his kingdom and the Welsh kingdom of Powys.
The Dyke is still visible in many places and we followed it for much of today’s walk, marvelling at the engineering feat of all those years ago.
It did get quite warm today and we cut our usual interval between breaks from three hours to two. At the higher elevations there was a cooling breeze and there were also some very nice shaded wooded sections, but there were three solid climbs which were hot sweaty work. Our phones indicated that local temperatures were in the mid-30s Centigrade during the afternoon, which was warmer than we would like, but not unmanageable.
Most of the day’s walking was on very pleasant paths of one kind or another, with seemingly endless great views, though our average pace was down, probably due to the hills. We eventually reached the village of Kington just before 4:00pm and stopped in at the supermarket to buy supplies and drinks for dinner, before walking the last 1.5 kilometres to our cabin and checking in. Another good day.
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