CHEPSTOW to TINTERN ABBEY (~10 miles with detours) 

(QUICK NOTE: More pictures will be coming soon! Sorry you’ve had to endure a travel journal with no pictures this far. I’m working on my Flickr account and should have sets up in the near future.) 

Holmes to Watson: “The game is afoot!”

…and so is our walk!

The feeling upon seeing our first “Offa’s Dyke Public Footpath” sign is hard to describe.  After thinking, planning, and dreaming of the Dyke journey for so long, it felt weird to be actually on path.  Shortly after starting, we touched the Dyke itself, another rush.

Offa’s Dyke is a massive earthwork stretching across the general boundary between Wales and England (although not totally continuous). 

The prevailing theory is that King Offa of Mercia commissioned the Dyke to be built as a defense against Welsh raids, or at the very least as a demarcation line.  The sheer length and size (up to 20m wide at points) are substantial enough to indicate that King Offa (Offa Rex, in latin) must have had considerable power, and perhaps a sort of compulsory service system was employed to get it built—for example, each person being responsible for so many feet of Dyke.  The Offa’s Dyke path is so named because it follows the remains of the Dyke in many spots, and offers numerous opportunities to walk on or nearby the Dyke.  At times, the Dyke appears to be nothing more than a slight burm—certainly not of obvious historical interest; but at some points it remains close enough to its original shape that it can be quite impressive, stretching across miles and miles of hills and plains.

We walked from the “First Hurdle” guesthouse to the start of the path at Sedbury Cliffs on the Severn River.  I was enthusiastic about actually touching the Severn River to “officially” start the walk—the logline is often Severn River to the Irish Sea, so we didn’t want to cheat ONE METER by simply starting from our guesthouse door.  This enthusiasm nearly did me in before we even got going.

I was picking a path down to the water and sprung down a small incline to land on the “ground” about two feet below.  Without warning, the surface had changed from wet but firm dirt to foot-deep sucking mud!  When I jumped, both feet sank DEEP and my momentum came within a hairsbreadth of overextending one knee forward as my feet were almost instantly rooted.  Thankfully, one foot broke loose just as I felt the knee tweak and I was able to take one step forward to break the momentum.  I’m not being one bit melodramatic to say that I was *this close* to busting me knee and ending our rambling trip before getting even one hour into the 200-ish miles.  If that had happened, it would have been ultimately crushing, and to this day I something say a little silent “thank you” that my knee didn’t pop and we were able to go on and experience the path.

Although not injured, I did find myself hopelessly mired in the muck.  I had to remove one shoe and “sock it” around in the goop, finally getting the other foot free after some gymnastics and help from J’s walking stick.  When I clambered back to more solid ground, both shoes and socks were covered solid in about 2 inches of very sticky mud.

Unfortunately, the only nearby water (not counting the Severn, which was a hundred yards distant across the muck mud plains) was a field runoff that stank fiercely of cows.  Instead, we elected to use all of our pack water (both of us were carrying 2+ liter Platypus hydration bladders) to try to clean me off.  It worked, kind of, and after a change of socks and a few laughs, we were ready to *actually* begin the path.

That first day’s walking was great.  Being on footpaths in Britain is hard to explain to those who haven’t experienced them.  In the first two miles along, we walked everything from sea cliff to pastures with cows to backyards to road to stone-walled lanes to thick woods.

After starting things properly at the Offa’s Dyke start rock (with a plaque), we detoured back into Chepstow to visit the castle.  Well worth it, and it was nice that our first day’s itinerary allowed the time for it.  It also provided a convenient opportunity to refill our empty water bladders.  Leaving there, we started following the path on the way to Tintern.

Along the way to Tintern, we saw some pretty estates, many animals (livestock, border collies, birds) and lots of flowers.  The only downside of that first bit of path was some road walking with no sidewalk or shoulder.  In retrospect, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some later parts we’d experience, but curves can be nervewracking when you don’t really have any safe spots (and country drivers typically haul ass!).

Our navigation was mostly successful that first day, and we only strayed off path a couple times.  For many parts of the footpaths we’ve experienced, you can get by without a compass and map.  But every once in a while you need them or you can get seriously off-course.  In the case of Offa’s Dyke Path and other national LDPs, the symbol used to denote the path is an acorn.  This helps distinguish from the literally hundreds of other footpaths which are marked differently.  The path caretakers take great pains to mark the path in as many spots as practical, but it can often take some looking (and a map!) to find those acorns, because the path can emerge and disappear into the most obscure and unlikely places.  Path symbols can be on signs, rocks, fences, posts—basically anything that can be used.  It’s a fun sort of “mini-game” to be looking to spot the next breadcrumb.

As a North American, the right-of-way that footpaths provide through private property (individual residences, etc.) really takes some getting used to (in a wonderful way!).  For days, I remained somewhat nervous every time the path would duck through someone’s backyard or livestock field, just imagining the lectures I’d get in the States about traipsing through somebody’s yard.  In Britain, though, the marked footpaths have priority, as they have been game or trade trails that have been in use for hundreds or thousands of years.  You are simply allowed to be on the path and there’s nothing the property owner can legally do to stop you.  99% of the property we passed through was accommodating to walkers, with only one real exception on this trip (a later journal entry, and our worst walking day on the path).  The fact that footpaths can traverse private property is what makes it possible for Britain to be so densely covered by various paths.  Look at any Ordnance Survey map and you can generally find tons of paths if you know what to look for.

Eventually you realize that it’s simply quite acceptable to be walking right by somebody’s cows or sheep or garden or lawn gnomes.

A bit out of Chepstow, we met and walked briefly with an older English gentleman who also started the ODP that day and was planning on walking as far as Knighton (the official half-way mark of the path), and then coming back to do the northern half a different time.  He was pleasant company, and we chatted from where gained the Dyke by the river Wye to about the Devil’s Pulpit, which overlooks Tintern and Tintern Abbey.  He was a somewhat experienced rambler, so we quizzed him a bit on walking.

The Devil’s Pulpit is so named for the legend that Old Nick himself would occasionally stand up there on the rock overlooking Tintern Abbey and shout at the religious bulwark.  Supposedly he quite resented the holy abbey.

The views from thereabouts were stunning, and the first glimpses of the abbey, ruined though it was, were remarkable.

One of William Wordsworth’s well-known poems is “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.”  I remembered this while around the Pulpit, and decided to follow tradition with my own crude composition once we reached our B&B:

Lines Composed Down the Road from Tintern Abbey

Towering stone and crumbled walls;

Grey and green, grey and green;

Lofty hills looking on cloister halls;

Grey and green, grey and green;

The majesty of Tintern,

Not now what it once was,

But more now than ever was.

 Don’t worry, I’m not turning poet any time soon.

Sadly, the abbey was closed by the time we stowed our packs in our room at Holmleigh and hustled down the road to see it.  But we were able to lurk around the exterior walls and outer ruins, and J spent some time doing a watercolor (in the rain no less) while sitting on a fountain.

We had a pub dinner at “The Moon and Sixpence.”  I had a Wye Valley bitter (really not bitter t’all) and ham and turkey pie with chips.  J had fish and chips and draft Strongbow cider.  All was excellent—after all, the pub grub and libations are half of the experience!

We did have to get used to pub etiquette again: seat yourself, order drinks and food from the bar (after shouldering your way in), don’t tip if you ordered at the bar, etc.

Including detours and diversions, I estimate that we walked around at least 10 miles, despite the nominal path length to Tintern Turn of around 6 miles.  Regardless, we felt a bit sore and tired after our first day’s exertions and excitements.  Not bad for the first day after flying in, perhaps!