Sunday Aug 18 2024

Today we would be starting out from Castle Mill up the Ceriog Valley and making our way to Llangollen up the Dee valley. We were joined by Kerry, Paul and Jude as well as Anne Hendrie.

At the start of the day we had the choice to walk around the Castle ground on the official path or up through the grounds of Chirk Castle on the “summer route”. This route is closed in the winter  for the grouse hunting season.

The summer route took us up to and around the Castle. It was originally built in 1310 by Edward I to lord over the (now defeated) Welsh. It passed to the Myddleton family who now maintain it more as a stately home under the care of the National Trust (the Myddletons were patients of the General Practice in Chirk when I was there).

The trail took us up more of Offa’s Dyke before veering west to (re)join the “proper” Offa’s Dyke Path which descended down to the Llangollen Canal.

A highlight of the day was to be walking across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct that takes the canal across the wide Dee Valley between Froncysyttle and Trevor. An engineering marvel by Thomas Telford. And a very popular tourist attraction. Again, while I had done house calls here back in the day I don’t recall ever actually walking across the aqueduct.

More importantly, we found a canal boat selling very good coffee. 

After lunch, instead of climbing up the Trevor Cliffs to follow the actual path we chose a leisurely walk alongside the canal up into Llangollen.

17.36km

And there was a train!

That evening the Lovedays kindly picked us up and transported us to their house in Knighton for a sumptuous dinner with them and Simon and Laura Rummens. Remembering the days at Shepparton (before Lori and I had arrived in the UK)