Day 35 – where is the path?

Mulsford to Chirk. 16.49 miles, 1,306 ft of elevation, 35,873 steps

Well today could be summarised as frustrating. We both set of from Kate’s B&B well fed and hoping today would start better than how we ended yesterday.

We soon realised that this was naive. Despite us wanting to move quickly on to the ‘Maelor Way’ and what we hoped would be a better, defined path, we were continually met with flooding, overgrown stiles and sometimes non existent paths. At times we travelled so slowly it was taking us 30 mins to do a mile , and a couple of times we had to back track. As such we did a couple of unnecessary miles and ended the day exhausted despite the lower mileage. I will let the photos below give a picture of what we had to deal with ….

Still, we did make progress and once we resigned ourselves to the rural roads, we met saw some great sights. If you can, zoom in on this one as there is a donkey in amongst the ducks and chickens…..

We did see some lovely parts and as we followed the banks of the river Dee came across a beautiful church and pub (Manley Hall).

And then would you believe it, as we finally made it to Chirk we saw another canal. Come on, can we never leave them. This one is the Llangollen canal and was a hive of activity. We saw at least 10 boats moving and in the space of 20 minutes outstripped the previous 2 weeks excitement! It turns out Chirk is an incredibly important town in term of history and feeling suitable lazy, I have taken a photo and will allow you all to read the fine details…

I couldn’t resist one last photo now we are firmly in Wales. How can you possible guess….

Tomorrow will be a real milestone as we start Offa’s Dyke and at the end of the week will have completed it and be firmly in the South if England. We have been joined by David Vernon tonight who will do the next day and a half. Should be great, and the weather is clear again.

Finally, just a quick hello from our bullock friends….,