Day 57
Monmouth to Pandy: 13 miles
Song of the Day: Burning Down the House, by The Talking Heads
Reason: I keep walking into fields of slowly moving sheep when this song comes on and I have, in some rather Amelie-style moments, created a sheep in a field-themed 80s-style music video in my head to go along with it. It's pretty funny, maybe one day I'll put it together in reality and show you.
So, when I asked the B and B owner what the upcoming path was like, she said 'undulating.' When I ran into Rob, the Offa's Dyke Trail officer near the beginning of today's walk, he also said 'undulating.' So I was not terribly surprised when the walk was, in fact, undulating. I was however, surprised by how difficult recurring waves and troughs can be, when walked over a long-ish distance on a warm day.
Luckily, the scenery was green and varied and pleasant the whole way. Having just seen Tintern Abbey two days ago, I was interested in seeing what the remains of Cistercian Abbey Grace Dieu, just down the path from where I was staying, would be like. So this one was more in line with my expectations as to what happens to thousand year old abbeys near the border of two countries that used to have wars - i.e. it was an empty field. There was one rock in the ground that might have been once attached to an Abbey of some sort, but it needed quite a bit of imagination.
It was still nice though - a lovely green field with set next to rolling green hills, set next to fields of newly rolled bales of yellow hay. As I kept on going the scenery varied slightly, but always along the same theme of adorable picturesque countryside that I expected hobbits to pop out of at any moment.
I kind of assumed there'd be hamburgers
Besides running into Rob the path officer while he was out cutting back foliage, and having a chat with him about trail maintenance (he walks the path once a year, manages funds and tries to maintain signage and the trail itself), really not a whole lot happened today - though I did keep getting tantalizing views of inland mountains that I'd be climbing on the way towards Hay-on-Wye tomorrow.
He did make me feel a lot better about taking a zillion days to walk around Wales when he recounted the story of a recent New Zealander who ran the trail in something ludicrous like 25 days. While raising money for a good cause (thus I'm in full support) man did that idea sound miserable. Of course his challenge sounded more like a physical and mental endurance thing, than, well, whatever it is I'm doing by walking ten miles a day around Wales and drinking a lot of cider for no readily apparent reason other than it seemed like an interesting thing to do at the time.
Anyway. Other than that chat, and Shire-style adorableness, and one rather lengthy chat with a farmer who cornered me in his tractor, not a whole ton happened. I had been excited to see White Castle - but when I arrived they did not in fact provide me hamburgers as I was led to believe. Instead it was simply a particularly well-preserved medieval castle, called White Castle because, duh, the walls used to be white.
So apparently this is one of a trio of castles that the Normans built in this area - rather than a medieval affiliate of the US fast food chain. There's actually a 'three castles path' that takes in all three - and although I left hungry, I couldn't help but appreciate that although I'd never heard of this castle it actually was impressively sited and equally impressively intact.
Wales' version of South of the Border
With all this talk of hamburgers, I believe I actually forgot to mention why I was so food-focused. So yesterday I knew I was staying in a B and B outside Monmouth, without access to any type of food in the area, and I suspected that today's trail similarly wouldn't take me past much in the way of refreshments. So in Monmouth I'd stopped at a M&S food.
Of course, given the size of my backpack, combined with tiredness and bit of in-built idiocy on my part, I left with a bag of peanuts, a bag of semi-dried apricots, and a can of ready made thai green chili with rice. I'd eaten the thai green chili with rice the evening before with a camp spoon sitting by myself in bed in a nice B and B while watching Mamma Mia (it sounds a lot sadder than it actually felt at the time), and my host had confirmed that I wouldn't see anything to eat until I got to Llangattock Lingoed, well along the path, but that they served food all day.
So having basically only eaten a few dried apricots since breakfast, I inched my way toward Llangattock Lingoed. As I got closer, I started to realize that the good people of the Hunters Moon were really up on their advertising opportunities. 'Fancy a pint? A cup of tea? You're only 45 minutes from the Hunters Moon' it was like a way, way less racist version of the giant South of the Border signs going south towards Florida on the Route 95 of my childhood. I really can't describe how much less racist though. Also smaller.
But you can tell they know they have a captive audience. In particular, as you get to Llangattock Lingoed itself, there's a really, really steep last bit of field you have to navigate. At the top end of the gate, the Hunters Moon has a sign that congratulates you, and has a picture of a pint of beer on it, with an arrow. When I got to the Hunters Moon (which thankfully, also knowing it's audience of largely starving people who just walked from Monmouth serves food all day long), I talked to a guy who said that although he knew there was food in Pandy 'for some reason I really knew I wanted a pint here.' Yes, that's called the way subliminal message of showing you a picture of a pint of beer when you're super exhausted.
I have to say I'm not entirely sure whether I really loved the local Robinson's cider I got because it was amazing, or because I just really, really, really wanted a pint of cider at that point. I don't really care, it hit the spot, as did the chicken fingers I may have gotten off of a children's menu.
After that I felt better enough to wander around the nearby St. Cadoc's church, a 700+ year old church with a large 15th century painting inside of St. George slaying the dragon inside. There's also something called a bressumer beam - that used to hold the screen that separated clergy from parishioners - also from the 15th century.
Pandy
I arrived in Pandy and immediately left, because the B and B I was staying in was on the outskirts. And unfortunately up a really long driveway up an annoyingly high hill. Once again this had a 'Walkers Welcome' sign up in the window (the symbol here, I take it, that people know you're probably hand washing your socks in their sink) and had two very attentive hosts who took me up to a true British single room.
What I mean by this is this is the kind of room that was built around a single bed and literally could not possibly fit anything else. Through miracles of tetris-like engineering you're not in fact sleeping in the shower, but when you open the shower door you do worry it might hit the bed even from inside the bathroom. That said - I love that these rooms still exist because they're made for singles and only singles, and thus they are cheaper when you're travelling alone. Yay!'
As I sat on the bed with my feet practically in the tv while reading the informational brochure the hotel had placed nearby, I realized that, once again, I'd entirely bypassed some things I'd been interested in. For example, in Pandy is the Skirrid Inn - which is from 1100 and is the oldest Inn in Wales. I'd also heard it was the most haunted - possibly because it was a pub that had a unique square spiral staircase that doubled as a gallows. Economy of space. Yikes.
I also suddenly realized that I was near Abergavenny. Which really I should have realized earlier. But this is important because Abergavenny is pretty much a foodie's dream. So, making a mental note that this is one of the places P and I were going to return to via car once I finished up, I ruefully sat on my tiny bed and ate handfulls of apricots and peanuts for dinner, being too footsore to walk to anyplace nearby.
