This Is Not A
BLOG!
Date: 16/09/06
Taking A Hike...
...or, "wot i did on mi holidays" by Baby Grumplin' (aged
44¼).
Taking a much-needed two weeks away from the increasingly sour vat
of horse-piss which is the office, I decided it was time for one of my
Walks.
Now, just in case anyone thinks this means that I get the rucksack
out and go for a ten-day tour of the Cairngorms, forget it. I stay
local; if I can't get there and back in a day, it's out of the question.
I realised that it must have been twenty five years since I'd last
gone up Hope
Mountain. I was a mere teenager then, and going up there and back
in an afternoon was no big deal. Indeed, I seem to remember that the
last time had been on that day in 1981 when Prince Big-Ears married
Lady Diana Brood-Mare, and I'd wanted to get away from all that
sycophantic shite (I took my radio with me, but it remained tuned to a
rather good rock show on the Hungarian service of Radio Free Europe
throughout).
As middle age asserts itself ever more strongly, I knew that this
time was going to have to be a whole-day job. So, I reasoned, why not
push myself a little bit further and visit Lake Horeb? When my mother
was a girl in the 1920s and 30s, she and her family would walk there
for picnics in the summer. I'd never been there at all.
I decided to go for it.
Setting off from home at about 9.50 on a bright morning, I went
down past the old vicarage to...oh, hold on, you'll need a map. Here:
(Start at bottom centre. The red dots mark the outward route, the blue the return journey).
Where was I? Ah yes. I crossed the Minera Road, clambered over the
stile and down the field to Lower Lodge and the ford. Then came the
long drag up the lane on the other side. Parts of it are about 1 in 4,
and much of it is enclosed by hedges and banks, so it felt quite
claustrophobic and made any sense of visible progress difficult. In
fact, a couple of times I thought to myself, "Sod this for the Duke
of Edinburgh!", and nearly turned back.
I reached the village of Cymau, relieved to get a flat stretch for
a while, and made my way to a seat which stands (or should that be
'sits'?) at the crossroads opposite the Olde Talbot Inn. Back in 1980,
I'd stopped off for a quick drink there, but I knew this wasn't an
option this time. I simply can't drink during the day anymore.
After a rest of about ten minutes, I turned left up yet another
steep, narrow, tree-canopied lane which led up the mountain side. This
led shortly to a junction where I took a sharp right turn up another
slope. After about fifty yards or so, this forked into two options. On
all previous occasions, I'd taken the left-hand one, as this leads
close by the summit of the mountain, and that had been my target then.
This time, though, I had thought a bit further ahead, and knew that the
right-hand road would hug the contour line a bit more, and would
therefore be far less steep.
As I stood there at the fork, I saw an elderly lady walking towards
me, accompanied by a small dog. We exchanged greetings, and she said
that she had come to end of the road to meet the postman, who was on
his way up from Cymau in his van. We chatted for a few minutes, until
the red van appeared around the corner. I started off again, watching
the lady and her dog walk down the driveway to the farmhouse which
nestled below the road.
I went along, bemoaning the fact that the trees and hedges largely
obscured the view eastwards, allowing me nothing much more than
tantalising glimpses of the panorama. Certainly nothing to be able to
point a camera through and get a shot unhindered by branches.
The road went on...and on...and...who keeps adding bits on to the
back of this mountain?
Finally, the road curved around to the left a bit and the
vegetation thinned out, allowing the scenery its chance. And what
scenery it was! I'd been wondering about visibility, because it had
been a bit hazy when I'd set off, but it had cleared nicely by now, and
I had an untrammelled view across east Flintshire and Cheshire.
Certainly, I had a great view of the cement works at Padeswood, rising
stark and white in the middle of the landscape and looking from that
distance a bit like Ceauşescu's palace (only I don't think the old thug
had sand hoppers on his):
I also had a clear view of the Aerospace factory at Broughton. As I
was walking along, one of these little beasties came in to land at the
airfield next to it:
The road seemed to drop down a bit, which made me wonder if I was
on the right one, as I knew that my destination was on top of the ridge
to my left. Finally, I came to a left turn, which led up a predictably
steep hill. As I climbed, I happened to meet a member of Wrexham
Council's planning committee:
I reached the top of Horeb village and turned right. There was Waun
Y Llyn Country Park.
(Told you...)
I wandered up the path to a viewing point, where I saw that I still
had a couple of hundred yards to go before I got to the lake itself. I
clambered painfully over a stile, and trudged on until I was sitting
beside the lake.
It had taken me three hours to get there.
I stopped for lunch at this point. I can't say that there was an
awful lot to see apart from landscape, and there was a rather biting
northerly breeze which didn't help. Anyway, I was only up there for
half an hour, as I wanted to get back home for about 4 pm.
I had originally thought about following one of the paths down to
Llanfynydd, and going home via Ffrith, but I realised that, for reasons
of both time and energy, this was a non-starter - at least this time.
Off I set, but this time I followed the road on the western
side of the mountain. This climbed a bit to start with, but once the
summit had been passed on my left, there was only one way left - downwards.
People who don't walk much seem to think that walking downhill is
easier. It isn't, if only because (especially on the more dramatic
gradients) you have to keep the anchors on at all times to prevent your
legs getting out of control and throwing you off the road altogether.
After another brief rest on the seat by the Talbot, I headed off
back down towards the ford.
This is where the hard work began. It was all uphill from
here. When I got to the stile at the bottom of the field which led back
on to Minera Road, I found that I could no longer lift my leg high
enough to get over it, so I had to walk an extra hundred yards or so to
where the lane met the main road, then back to the junction opposite
the top stile. Still, I paced myself, and arrived back home shortly
before 4 pm. Just over 2½ hours to get home.
Was it worth it? Well, yes it was. I got out of the house for the
day, it didn't cost me anything and I felt that I'd achieved something.
It can't be bad to be out in the fresh air in good weather.
I also got quite a lot of good photographs (in addition to the ones
here), which I'll be adding to the Gallery
before very long.
