My feet were fine for a few days of walking and then suddenly, on a day off, came an excess of shooting pains through the heels. It’s hard to say what the problem was, so sensitive were they to small changes. It could be that I hadn’t stretched for a couple of days, or perhaps that I didn’t rest on the final day’s walk, simply striding out for twelve miles. Or it could be that the previous four days’ walking, fifty-five miles in total, was a little too intensive. I felt as if I was teetering on the brink of serious injury, just a little more over-forcing of my body would break it.
I started trying to limit my speed again, as I had done in the Conwy valley. Having taken two full weeks off over June and July it felt too soon, in late August, to take another break. I was sensitive to the end of the summer too, wanting to continue through the summer to reduce the winter miles that would otherwise come later.
It was harder, in a way, to keep my pace slow. I had to consciously take smaller steps, ease back when the rest of my body wanted to stride out on a lovely, flat, forestry track. I became very aware of the number of hours I spent walking each day. I didn’t use any distractions like music or radio; a lot of long-distance walkers write of the poetry they recited as they strode, modern blogging walkers write of podcasts and audio books. Patrick Leigh Fermor would re-enact great swathes of Shakespeare as his nimble, great-coated, 19-year-old self made his cheerful, optimistic way across pre-WWII Europe. Instead, I would sing snatches of songs as they came to mind, usually just one or two lines that I repeated over and over.
Ain’t nothing going to break my stride
Nobody going to slow me down
Oh no, I’ve got to keep on moving…
I’m not sure what I did all day – just think, it seems. I’m not even sure what about. I wasn’t bored, never bored and I wasn’t lonely, although I greatly appreciated company. I suppose walking slowly made me more aware of the great distance I had still to cover; a whole day passed and I only covered eight miles. Eight miles! And I am trying to walk 3300!!! I felt like a tiny ant who’d unknowingly set out to cross a mountain, toiling over one tiny pebble at a time, only indirectly sensing the great hovering mass to come.
Never mind how slow I felt; it was good for my feet. The reduced mileage helped, and some magical stuff called Muscle Oil, which I picked up in my local healthfood shop. The bottle showed the name of the maker (Richard Evans, Bonesetter, Pwllheli) the date (est. 1800) and the picture of said Mr Evans, a respectable gentleman in a suit, white hair and round glasses. The curiosity of such a substance was enough to satisfy me. I’d rub it on my feet and calves at night, and the shooting pains diminished. I’d do whatever enabled me to crawl towards and complete this 3000+ mile challenge, even if I had to mentally chafe at a ten-mile-daily pace for the whole of the remaining 2000 miles.
I walked very slowly from Dolgellau to Trawsfynydd to Blaenau Ffestiniog, and then to Capel Curig. It took four days, something that would take most walkers two at most. But I’m not comparing; I never do that (yeah right). I wild camped all three nights, first against a stone wall about half a mile out of Coed y Brenin where my rudimentary shelter failed to keep out the rain, and I woke up soggy round the edges.
It was a plain and pleasant day’s walk through farmland into Trawsfynydd and out again. I was in search of a café and a sit-down but the two village cafés had closed down. The kind people in the shop offered me a cup of tea and brought a stool outside for me to sit down for a while. It started to rain again as I sat working out my onward journey on the map, small droplets blowing against me as I sat on my high stool, wedged back against the shop window where only the windblown edges of wetness could reach me. I didn’t mind; getting slightly wet was going to be the norm from now on. I could already feel my reaction to mild rain getting to be the same as to no rain at all.
The path provided me with symbolic items that day: a pair of rusting nail-scissors hanging provocatively on a mossy tree-root alongside a babbling stream, a scratched and battered disposable camera on a rubble forest road, a button badge that contained the single, solemn affirmation OK. I collected them, tucking them into my rucksack’s net pockets, alongside my water bottle, imagining what they might turn into if I threw them behind me in a time of need. They could transform into blinding flashes of light or towering, jagged shards of rock. My walk became a quest for a few hours, with monsters and benefactors tracking my progress, hidden and watchful, generous and malevolent.
That night I slept in a beautiful field, a wide, open slope easing gently down towards the River Cynfal. I lay on the remnants of a Roman road and read The Mabinogion, finally coming to the story of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the climax of which took place by the river I was lying near. It rained overnight but I didn’t mind. I’d made a great, if slightly sagging shelter, and I was happy and cosy, even sleeping well enough to get up before 8am.
The next day was a short five-mile stroll into Blaenau Ffestiniog, where I could shower, shop and recharge my phone.
I came up the sharp climb of Blaenau Ffestiniog quarry, stopping to admire my final view of the Trawsfynydd power-station towers before continuing to…the end of the footpath! I could see on the map that there was a gap between the path which climbed through the quarry, and the next one I wanted, which snaked its way around the highland lakes and down to Dolwyddelan. I thought there’d be a way through somehow, I didn’t expect a dead end.
There, a hundred metres above the quarry, surrounded by rusty machinery and slate piles was a sign saying, Public footpath ends here. Please return along footpath. Yeah, right, as if I was going back on myself. I dropped my rucksack and had a scout around. There were a couple of ways up the final slopes of slate and shale, none seeming too attractive. The steepness of the climb and loose rock underfoot made it a dangerous possibility, especially with the 200m drop behind me into the quarry. But I spotted a way to climb onto a bank of grass leaving just a ten-metre scramble up the shale and rock, with only a small drop and a flat bit below it reducing further the very small chance of my rolling down the hill in a flurry of rock.
Holding my breath I moved slowly from footstep to footstep. The heavy rucksack on my back changes my balance in a way that makes it very difficult to go up steep slopes. I resorted to using my hands to pull me up the final few steps and finally I was out on grassland again, above the quarry and free to walk over the moorland towards the forest and down into the next village. But that was for the next day, first I had to sleep.
I walked through the boggy grass and headed for a slate tower; old mine-workings meant that there’d be a layer of stone between me and the squelchy ground. It was a perfect sleeping spot: a raised platform, long grassed-over and with an incredible view back down over the quarry, the surrounding mountains and even the sea. The weather forecast gave a clear night so I decided to chance it and settled down for a night in the bivvy bag. There was a low stone wall along one side of the platform and it was the windbreak I needed. I snuggled down into my sleeping-bag, hood up and dozed off.
Rain. It rained. Let me tell you that there are not many worse feelings than to be lying in a sleeping-bag in the rain with very little that you can do to avoid an inevitable drenching. It happened when I’d been asleep for a while, maybe around 11pm. I was too close to deep sleep to jump up and take action – there wasn’t any action to take anyway – all I could do in that situation would be to lose body- heat and make myself and kit wet as I fumbled in the dark and rain, trying to string up some half-arsed shelter. Nope, better to tuck in and ride it out, take the punishment for my laziness. I stayed warm and dry, the few hours of light drizzle only soaked through to the outside of my sleeping-bag. It was times like this that I was deeply thankful for being hosted so frequently. I never had to suffer the ultimate penalty for my shoddy adventuring skills – to bed down in a wet sleeping bag.
Striding through the forestry on my way over the hill to Dolwyddelan, coming around the base of Moel Siabod, I disturbed a fox on the forestry track. Scrawny and bla
ck, it was a shabby little thing with beady eyes and thin, scraggly fur. It pattered away from me on first view but then stopped to turn and look back. I walked closer, didn’t stop, and it stayed still for a couple of beats then turned to pad away to a safe distance before turning to stare at me again. It was as if it couldn’t work out what it was seeing. I imagined my walking-poles from a fox perspective. Two thin legs and two thick legs, a creature that moves ungainly and misshapen, the two thin legs should break and it should drag on the ground and yet it approaches, this unbalanced creature that is not fluid in its movements. The fox stared until I came close again and finally ran, disappearing back to its hidden life in the undisturbed forest.
Rarely climbed by humans away up here, not a tourist destination, Moel Siabod slumbered away to my left. I heard there was a cave up there, where a Welsh preacher had hidden from the English, his Welsh Bible translation – a treasured contraband. I wanted to summit and find that cave, spend a night in a hideaway, but Siabod was not on my route, this quiet peak with such a strong name.
I descended to Capel Curig and finally met Shân, aunty of neighbour Deri, the woman who’d done so much for me on my way up the Conwy valley many months earlier. She was a whirring, excitable woman, an experienced traveller who immediately set about getting my kit washed and drying, before making me tea. We sat for a few hours as I listened to her talking about whatever subject came to mind: her University employer, women’s rights, mountain-climbing holidays, government oppression, international feminism. I heard someone describe her as a top feminist activist in Wales, a scatty whirlwind of a woman who’d spent her life fighting for her ethics and being friendly and helpful to everyone she valued.
It had been a pretty spectacular day. In only eight miles from Blaenau to Capel Curig I managed to say goodbye to southern Snowdonia, view both the upper waters of Cardigan Bay and the Irish Sea beyond Conwy, walk around Moel Siabod, and get a view of the Glyders. I’d reached the serious mountain territory of north west Wales, and it was a little intimidating to think that in a few weeks’ time I wouldn’t be skirting round the feet of these mountains but going over the tops of them, one summit after another. It would be a serious test of my capabilities, as if the first 1300 miles had been training! I wasn’t sure how well I’d manage but, as usual, all I could do was have a go. I had a map and compass, I was certain of my survival skills and my stamina, and I just had to take it slow and steady. It seems that this was my mantra for this sizeable journey, too big to be devoured in one push. I must take it slow and steady, slow and steady.
I came down from Capel Curig, following the Conwy Valley north towards Llandudno. I was going to walk across the top of Wales from Conwy to Holywell to finish off the Cistercian way, and then immediately follow the coastal path back to Conwy to begin the mountain path. This meant I’d walk around the Great Orme twice in ten days. I relished this beautiful and unusual day’s walk – on tarmac, true, but with a wonderful sense of the road dropping away to crashing sea below, the swooping of curves as the road, cut into sheer rock, wound its way around the edges of this huge boulder. This was a road to show off human mastery, no other reason for it to exist than Victorian superiority over the natural environment. I slept out on there too, coming to a shelter by the side of the rising road that overlooked the Conwy estuary, nearby vegetation with that familiar bent and elongated shape, showing it had grown under extremely windblown conditions.
I had a view of Snowdonia, Anglesey and Conwy Bay and watched as the sun set and the sky above the mountains turned gentle lilac, the moon rising luminous in the same view. Did I sit and wonder at the beauty of the world, thinking about how lucky I was to be doing this, how I’d much rather be here than anywhere else? Nope, I read my book, Rabbit, Run with a main character who would rather be anywhere than where he was, checked the internet, took some photos, rubbed my feet and, once it got dark, laid down for a tolerable night’s sleep on a bench.
I’m not saying I was actively disliking it. When I thought about the alternative, which was to stop, return to Machynlleth and pick up the strings of work and social life again, there was nowhere else I’d rather be, nothing else I’d rather be doing than camping and walking. But the euphoria had gone, the thrill of the new faded, the excitement worn off.
It felt sometimes as if the days were all the same; I woke up somewhere strange, walked all day, stopped to rest my feet, eat, read, stare into space. I reached the end of the day, ate more, rubbed my feet again and slept, trying and always failing to get enough rest to do the same thing the next day without feeling tired.
It was during this time, when everything felt tired and painful and repetitive, that I really faced the fact that I was going to keep walking through the winter. I was originally set to finish the walk in October. 3300 miles in eight months. It was late August now and after almost six months, I’d covered nearly 1400 miles. That was the stark reality of what I was capable of.
I’d told myself I would decide at the end of the summer, but I always knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to finish the target I’d set myself, even if it took a year or more. How could I only walk half of Wales? How could I finish before I’d walked around Anglesey? Or the Pembrokeshire coast? Or to the top of Snowdon? Or explored the South Wales rivers?
But rain was coming, autumn was coming, winter was coming. I needed to plan ahead. I’d had a wonderful summer, the kind where so often I could just put down my tarpaulin and sleeping bag and sleep under the stars. I didn’t even own a tent! I’d camped through a night of heavy rain a few weeks previously by setting up my tarpaulin shelter, but I woke up in the morning and found a slug in my hair. Things had to change.
I’d been collecting winter kit: long sleeved, merino wool tops, insulated leggings, gloves. Someone off the internet might give me a tent, otherwise I was going to buy one.
I’d had my boots posted up from Bristol and was trying them out instead of the fell-running shoes I’d been wearing for the last 1000 miles. They were good, much better grip for the oncoming mountains, less pain in some ways, and they definitely helped to support my ankles. I realised my Achilles tendon had swollen while walking in trainers, it made a noticeable lump at the back of my heel.
I stopped, on the way to Holywell, at the house of a woman called Ceri Camino, who’d contacted me and offered to pick me up from the path. We chatted as she made me dinner and gave me a foot bath. She’d walked the Camino to Santiago, the traditional Catholic pilgrimage route across the top of Spain, and understood the special world of exhaustion and wonder a long-distance walker enters. She offered me her flat for a rest day; she’d go and stay with her boyfriend so I could relax and pretend the place was my own.
After a lot of stretching, ice baths and self-massage, my feet were almost pain-free when I said goodbye to Ceri. It made me realise just how much they hurt all the time. Given that I wasn’t even half-way through and faced another six months of walking, the idea of all that future pain was a bit of a scary prospect.
I felt pretty solemn as I set off to Holywell. I camped one night in a farmer’s field, near the house. I was walking through the farm, a criss-cross of footpaths running through the land, and got talking to the man in the farmyard. He asked me where I would sleep and when I told him I’d wild camp somewhere further on, choosing for once to be open about my living style rather than shying away from the chance of him telling me off, he immediately said I could camp on his land. I sat with him and his wife in the house for a while, talking about their prize-winning sheep; he’d won Best in Show at the Royal Welsh and had sold all his spare stock by the very next day.
“Brought us forward by a good few years,” he said.
I sensed the idea of a farm being an ongoing business, always with a development plan and ideas for which piece of stock or land or infrastructure to invest in next. I set up my shelter in the nearest paddock and he insisted on bringing a woodburner out to me. Saying he used it in his barn for lambing. Then came a chair to sit on as I
toasted myself in the luxurious warmth, rubbing muscle oil into my feet and feeling, as I so often did on this journey, that the world is a wonderful, generous and beautiful place.
The next day I walked into Holywell again, out of the flat dullness of the Vale of Clwyd and over the outstretched finger of the Clwydian Range. There was a convent in Holywell, just up the hill from the holy well itself, where a spring of reputedly miraculous healing properties welled up into an ornate stone housing, centuries old.
I decided to sleep in the town and go to the well the following day. I wanted to go to the convent and ask if they’d give me a bed. I’d just walked 600 miles of a route honouring the history of their religion, and I thought this might be a worthy story to allow me a bed in a cell, and a meal, in the tradition of helping poor pilgrims. But the building was high and shuttered with a blank intercom at one corner, plus there was a nun-run guesthouse next door. I quailed in the face of modern capitalism and rang at the door of the guesthouse, too shy to stammer out a plea for a discounted bed.
I wanted to give symptoms awareness cards to the nuns who came to the door. Women who haven’t had children are slightly more at risk of ovarian cancer, but I faltered at that too, embarrassed by their nunliness. They were wearing full habits, head coverings; it created a distance from me, an obvious sign of the difference in how they lived their lives. They asked no questions as they took my details, barely making conversation at all. Their lives were something I didn’t understand and I felt too awkward to break through our disconnectedness, impose on their strong beliefs with a passion of my own. If their beliefs could be misguided, maybe mine could too.
It was a strange night in a sparse room, somewhere between bland B&B and religious cell. I ventured down for breakfast in the morning, finding a large, low-ceilinged room, decorated with religious paintings and sculptures. The furniture was conference-hotel style tables, tablecloths and chairs. There was one other woman in the room – middle-aged, grey bobbed hair and glasses – sitting at a table laid for one. Next to her table was another, also laid for one. They were the only tables in the room that had been laid for breakfast. We had been placed parallel to each other, facing ahead. We said a brief hello and ate in silence, together alone. There was an air of meekness.
One Woman Walks Wales Page 17