Offa's Dyke

Me and Richie had been planning a trip along part of Offa's Dyke for some time, co-ordinating our time off work was the main problem. Offa's Dyke is a hiking path that runs the whole distance between Wales and England, more or less following the border itself.. Originally built by Offa a king of Mercia, to keep out marauders from what is now Wales. It is 177 miles long and Richie had prepared a route for us to cover about a tenth of that distance over the weekend.

We were to set off from Hatterall Hill heading north hoping to break the back of the walk and then bivi on the top near Hay Bluff as it grew dark. This would leave a nice leisurely stroll into Hay on Wye on Sunday morning.

The forecast on Saturday was for 50mph winds and maybe a little rain, before the wind dropped and the rain cleared by around six that evening.

The day started off quite pleasant and the climb up Hatterhall was was warm under blue skies and fluffy clouds. The views from here were stunning, looking over to England on the east and Wales to the west. The views of England were markedly flat and of square fields bordered with hedges and dry stone walls ...all nicely ordered. The large looming mountains signifying the unfettered wildness of Wales on our left side. There was something wonderfully ironic about a Welshman and an Englishman walking together along something originally designed to keep us a part :)

The wind up this high was incredible with some of the blasts almost knocking me over, it was becoming apparent that we'd have to drop lower to set up camp.

A more pressing problem was water, or the lack of it. We were both carrying enough water to drink. But finding water to camp was a problem. We'd both brought filter bottles with us, Richie had the katadyn here : katadyn and I had the travel tap from the most excellent Backpackinglight.co.uk We'd bargained on getting water from streams. But after such a wonderfully dry September even Wales was short of water :)

It was hard going, the terrain was uneven and the wind was blowing us all over the place.

As we neared the highest point of our trek, dark clouds began building to the east and within half an hour we were being blasted by freezing horizontal rain. Here we revised our plans and Richie suggested we push on to Hay Bluff and drop down from there. Luckily from here onwards the trail was large stone slabs, laid to prevent erosion and these made for good speed.

As we descended the Bluff it was hammering down and we decided to forego the camping and pushed on into Hay on Wye.

It was a great hike and we accomplished what we'd set out to do, the full 17 miles. We are going back to bivi another day :)