"Up The Dyke" Day 12 - July 24th 2002, Llandegla to Bodfari "I See The Sea!"
Day	Date	Start	Finish	Approx. Miles	Hours	Accommodation
12	Wed. 24th July	Llandegla	Bodfari	18	7¼	Gwladys Edwards, Fron Haul, Sodom, Bodfari, Denbighshire, LL16 4DY, Tel. 01745 710301

Click on any picture to go to a larger version or to go to the full set of Offa's Dyke photographs for this day.

When we were kids, Mum and Dad, who never owned a car, would take us for day trips by coach from our home near Maidenhead to the south coast. I seem to remember that Littlehampton and Hayling Island were our favourites. As we got closer we would play the game "I See The Sea" and claim to see the water from some very improbable distances. And today, I saw the sea for the first time since leaving Sedbury Cliffs. I was almost there.

For the first time on the walk there was no cooked breakfast. Quite simply Elinor, who reminded me of the actress Patricia Routledge, doesn't do them and that was fine by me. We had fresh melon, cereals, yoghurt, croissants, toast, scrambled egg and all sorts of other fine stuff which set me up nicely for the eighteen mile walk to Bodfari. John is a maths teacher but also a guitarist and he serenaded us with the opening part of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjes, you know - the music that Miles Davis turned into Sketches of Spain. And very fine playing it was too. Thus fortified in body and soul I set off at about 08:50 (my earliest start so far) in cool, cloudy and almost drizzly weather.

The Path goes right past Elinor and John's front door, between Hand House (was the Hand Inn) and the church, down a track past the sewage works and through a field by the River Aleyn (another small stream become pompous!). I was pretty sure that I'd be doing today's walk on my own. Harry and Steph were staying several miles up The Path and I knew of no other Path walkers around. It turned out that later I was to meet, but not walk with, quite a lot of day strollers. Having already sang and whistled all the tunes I know, put every possible though through my brain I was left with only concentrating and enjoying the day's walk without straying (too far) off the route! I continued through fields for a while, (There has been plenty of "continuing through fields" on this walk!) up a not too muddy lane where there should have been cowslips (pause for a nostalgic childhood memory of cowslips in the field opposite our house when we were kids), although I didn't see any. I guess Spring's the time for cowslips.

I crossed the B5431 and took the drive up to Chweleiriog Farm but soon skirted the buildings taking a well marked and pleasant path around it before coming out on another road where the banks were supposed to have been clad in violets. But I guess that, as with the cowslips, it was the wrong time of the year. The Path then came to the bit I'd been looking forward to, the section up and across the Clwydian Hills. Starting with a steep climb up a grassy track beside a radio transmitter, reaching the summit of Moel-y-Plâs from where I could see that the heather to the west was becoming a beautiful purple colour. The Path came down to some disused pigsties (charming place!) where a buzzard was hunting for its lunch. There were some great views, especially down to Ruthin, although I couldn't see its supposed fine red sandstone castle. I skirted around Moel Llanfair and climbed a wide stony track (the one complained about in the guide as being "an ugly new EEC funded agricultural road - time and nature must have taken their course because it looked fine to me) to just below Moel Gwy. Here the wind was very strong and my map case string nearly strangled me as I became entangled in it! However, the views below were tremendous and I then descended on a lovely green, wide track - almost as if someone had put a soft carpet down to walk on. At this point I imagined I could see the sea on the horizon. Later I realised that it hadn't been my imagination and that I was getting my first glimpse of my ultimate destination, the north Wales coast.

I crossed another couple of fields and headed down to the A494 Ruthin to Mold road at the Clwyd Gate Inn and Motel (was Inn and Restaurant - how times change!). Went along this very busy road for a few hundred metres and then off to north up a track to the side of a house, via a short piece of very pretty wood and a series of gated fields (yes, more b****y fields - I suppose that's what you get for walking in the countryside!) with good views of the Aleyn Valley to the easy (yes, that pitiful river even has a valley named after it!). I crossed a stile and then saw Foel Fenlli, a very steep hill that has to be climbed. From the top there were excellent views again, followed by another climb, this time down, to the car park at Bwlch Penbarra. At the car park is a wheelchair path but it was overturded with sheep droppings designed to stick between the grips of wheels! Here you can enter the Moel Fammau Country Park, a very big area, which looks well used by day walkers and people just curious to see if they can make it up to the top of the hill to see the ruined George III Jubilee Tower. As I climbed someone was very expertly flying a model glider and to the north west was definitely the sea. A little later I passed a seat in memory of a 16 year old boy, Jamie, who had died in a climbing accident when with the Scouts in 2000. The words written by his parents brought a tear to my eye (actually, quite a few to both eyes). But maybe it was just the wind. Whatever, it was really the most poignant moment of the walk and affects me even now as I correct this text some weeks later. A little higher up I passed a similar seat inscribed "in memory of our dogs who loved these hills". It was hard to suppress a laugh (so I didn't!).

I reached the Jubilee Tower and there were quite a few walkers around, including a guy who had walked The Path himself a few years ago and he took my photo. There were wonderful views all around. I could see the sea, Liverpool Bay and Mount Snowdon. There was a Path marker with "Chepstow 157 miles" and "Prestatyn 20 miles" - nearly there. I continued and left people behind as I climbed towards the next hill, Moel Dywyll (which I couldn't pronounce!), where I stopped in the lee of the cairn to have my lunch and, for the first time on the whole walk, put my sweatshirt on as the weather became colder. It soon came off, though. Soon, after a bit of a descent, I could see the almost perfect shape of the 455 metre high Moel Arthur. I walked down to another car park and up The Path which skirts, rather than goes over the top of, the hill and met two ladies who were having their lunch (later I found out that they were Susan and Jane, the Six Year Walkers). They'd seen the Not a Couple an hour or so earlier. There was a long, long downhill from Moel Arthur and my knees and feet were feeling it a bit.

I crossed another car park and walked amongst some trees where The Path skirts a small forest. Beside The Path was grass with hundreds of cuckoo spits on it (what ARE or IS cuckoo spit/s?) and shortly after entered the hill fort of Penycloddiau. If the guide hadn't have told me I wouldn't have known. But then the guide keeps going on about hill forts and I find them all very hard to distinguish from the natural terrain. This one was a bit different and even I could see that there had been something there a long, long time ago. The Path goes half a mile through the centre of the fort but the guide invites you to "walk around the entire structure, if you have time" (**** that!). Looking back there were good views of Moel Arthur and the Jubilee Tower but I concentrated more on what was ahead.

From just past the fort begins a three mile descent to Bodfari, so watch out knees! I'd been watching a buzzard again and it was truly a wonderful sight, unlike the junkyard of a farm just to my right. Some farmers really are pigs and we subsidise them to do this sort of thing! I continued to descend past farms and saw three very pretty, yellow medium size birds but didn't know they were. Just after I passed a prime example of Offa's Dyke Path signposting where the track splits into two and the marker arrow points between the resulting paths. Below me I could see two villages, one of which was Bodfari, tonight's destination. Only time would tell which was the one. The Path passed through fields, across the merrily gurgling River Wheeler (another stream!) and onto a road with Bodfari straight ahead of me on the A541.

Then I realised that the wonderfully named Sodom, where our B&B for the night, Fron Haul, was located was some way further up The Path, and I mean up! So I set off once more thinking that at least my final day's walk would be shortened by what I was about to do. After a very steep climb over a field or two, around a wood and a house and another field I reached a minor road by which was a sign saying "Fron Haul B&B 300 yards". I got there at about 16:05 (7¼ hours for 18 miles, not bad), before Noelene, and was warmly welcomed by Gwladys Edwards (herself a walker) with tea and a large slice of a delicious home made chocolate cake. Had a great bath in this wonderful "Olde Worlde" farm house and relaxed a bit before going out for some grub at the Downing Arms in Bodfari. There we met Susan and Jane, two walkers also staying at Fron Haul who I'd met in the climb up Moel Arthur earlier in the day. They had been walking The Path in sections since 1996 and were due to finish tomorrow too. They seemed to have even more mixed feelings than I over finishing and weren't sure what they'd do next. I named them the Six Year Walkers.

Tomorrow is the final day and only about eleven miles. I'm not sure whether I'm sorry or glad that it will then be over. We'll see.

Day 12 Impressions

Day 12 was a right good walk and I set off in the right frame of mind thanks to a really good night's sleep, Elinor's excellent and different breakfast and John's guitar playing. The going was rather hilly but in the way it should be and the views were terrific most of the time. There was very little road walking, which I was grateful for, as my feet were aching by this stage, and the visit to Jubilee Tower was interesting to, forcing me to mingle with real people! The memorial seat to Jamie has left an impression with me that will last a long time. A day of mixed feelings but another good one nonetheless.

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