Aberaeron , Llanrhystud and Aberystwyth

I woke the next morning miraculously hangover free. Heaven knows how because we had enjoyed a lot of excellent wine the night before. All was well until I moved to the corner of the room where I had left the Boots of Hell. The nervous system is a wonderful thing and it will filter out information that isn't seen as important or a threat. God alone knows how, but my nervous system didn't consider the reek of the boots a threat and through the night, I'd stopped smelling it. Getting closer to them overwrote the filter. Jesus, what a smell! Cloying, organic and disgustingly sweet, if the word 'moist' has a smell, this would be it. Clean, showered and fragrant, it was horrible to put my feet into them.

Breakfast was lovely and we asked the owner if she had the number of a taxi who could ferry our bag to the next B and B in Llanrhystud. She asked us where we were staying and very kindly said she would drop off the bags on her way to Aberystwyth. Rhian piped up, 'We are walking there tomorrow.'

'All the way to Aberystwyth?' she asked.

'Yes', we preened.

'Ohh, that's a long way to walk!'

Her husband chipped in, 'Our son in law walked it last year and he found it really hard'. He looked us up and down, taking the measure of our ability. He looked disappointed. 'And HE was REALLY fit.'

We thanked them for their kindness and wandered down into town, stopping at Y Popty for a sandwich for lunch. Popty is Welsh for oven or bakery and its part of the slang term for microwave in Welsh, Popty Ping or the oven that goes 'ping'. The proper name for it is meicrodon, but I prefer the slang.

Y Popty

Having purchased our lunch, we made our way back down to the harbour, to rejoin the coastal path which ran alongside the sea, but first to call in on Ian at the Harbourmaster, to say farewell and thank him for a fabulous evening.

On entering the hotel we made our way into the restaurant where he was just about to take his breakfast, encountering some interested glances and a few disapproving looks as we, in our walking gear, daysacks, poles and rancid boots advanced upon the unsuspecting breakfasters and the busy, staff. Heads turned. We spied Ian and made towards him. The couple on the table next to him stopped, mid-forkful, looked at us and listened in with interest.

Hello darling!’ Ian looked up, fork in hand, sausage halfway to his lips.

‘Well, hello you two, how were you feeling this morning?’

‘Surprisingly OK’

‘Not worn out after last night?’

‘No, we have plenty of energy left for the day.’

The couple were now all ears and eyes.

‘Look, it was wonderful to see you both, I don’t want to keep you as I know you have a busy schedule for the day’. We hugged each other.

‘We must do this again, soon’ and with that we turned and left. As we were leaving the dining room we heard a shocked voice, ‘Do you KNOW those women?’

‘Never met them before in my life!" Ian replied promptly, and went back to his breakfast.

What a card!

The distance we'd walked was getting more impressive

Laughing, we walked down to the sea front, stopping to take one last look at the beautiful harbour ringed with the different coloured houses and to marvel at the coast stretching back, knowing we had walked as far as the eye could see. This was becoming more impressive with each day we walked.

Recollections of this day are limited. I seem to remember that the walking was relatively easy, along the coast with the main road the A468 never too far away, often above us. Highlights of the walk - the weather was good. Warm, hints of sunshine, and a wide horizon ahead of us.

We headed along the sea defences and out of the town, past caravan parks and down a long shingle beach as far as Aberarth. At this point we had to cut in briefly to cross the Afon Arath and then back to the coast. The walk hugged the very edge of some low cliffs with the sea pounding below us and this eventually morphed into farmland.

We stopped to watch a kestrel, perched on a fence next to the cliff edge and obviously on the look out for prey, and coming in the opposite direction, two men had stopped to do the same thing. We chatted to them and they said that they were aiming to walk to New Quay and I felt somewhat put out that they clearly thought our efforts were pretty paltry in just walking from Aberaeron to Llanrhystud! How very dare they? I had forgotten this pair. They were far too good at this walking lark and annoyed me by their casual confidence

Egos slightly deflated, we trudged uphill against a strong breeze, with a farm wall shielding us. We sat in the lee of the wall and enjoyed our lunch before continuing towards the village of Llanon. We wove our way to the centre of the village, and I was struck by the heavy traffic thundering through in both directions. By the time we arrived in Llanon we were in dire need of ‘facilities’ as neither Rhian nor I are fond of al fresco bathroom breaks. We availed ourselves of said facilities and were happy to head back towards the coast, passing a large group of elderly women who were clearly unimpressed by our efforts and further dampened our fragile egos for the rest of the day.

Relieved, we walked back to the sea and headed back up the path until we met a group of walkers coming in the other direction. This was a group of elderly women but unlike us they looked super fit and well organised and the even had maps in plastic wallet dangling from their suntanned necks. As we got closer the reason for their organised, heathy aura became obvious, they were German. We fell to conversation and they were kind and helpful, letting us know what the path ahead was like. ‘All quite easy until you come close to Aberystwyth and then it is hard. Even if you are fit,’ said the Leader of the Pack. The others nodded, looking at us. We did not pass muster. This was obvious from their downward-cast eyes. The Leader tried to be kind, she fiddled with her map, ‘I am sure you will be FINE’. The Pack looked shocked at this blatant lie but hastily rearranged their faces into confident bonhomie and nodded, less sure this time.

We took a diversion into Llansantfraed church which was cool and calm, and we asked for a bit of divine assistance for the next day. If those women thought the walk was hard, we were going to be in deep trouble. Llansantfraed Church. The churchyard showed the links between the village and the sea with graves for several mariners lost at the sea. We walked inland a little and eventually stopped and enjoyed our Popty sandwiches.

After a little while we saw some lime kilns that were full of beautiful wild flowers and we trudged on towards Llanrhystud and the end of the day’s walk

Reaching Llanrhystud beach by mid afternoon the path cut inland along what felt like a long, enclosed and very warm lane, passing a caravan site and farmland to bring us back to the A468 and Llanrhystud village. It was unprepossessing on first sight, dominated by that road and the heavy traffic. Pitching up, thankfully, at our accommodation for the night, Sgubor Wyre B and B, our rucksacks were waiting for us. It was a little haven and the welcome was warm.

Sgubor Wyre

Our room was large and Helen and I chose beds (yes, there was a choice!) at the farthest end of the room from each other. The reasoning behind this was that we would not have to suffer the smell of each other’s boots, Helen could make as much mess as she wanted down her end, (I don't make a mess!)(Oh yes she does!) and my snoring might disturb her less from the far end of the room. (She does snore, too)(And you don't?). My boots were beyond rancid by this point. They were impressively awful. We repaired to the pub across the road for several pints of lime and soda and then lager (it had been a hot and sweaty walk!) plus a great burger and chips before getting an early night.

There was a sense of trepidation and also a mix of excitement and a little sadness that tomorrow was the last day of our very first proper venture into the world of walking. We had read that this last day’s walk was going to be a tough one, and the weather was looking like a mix of high winds, showers and sun.

Come the morning, we packed our bags, our landlady once again very kindly offering to drop them at our hotel in Aberystwyth. Breakfast was excellent, as was the conversation with our landlady. She warned us about the awfulness of the last section before Aberystwyth. These comments were starting to worry me. We consulted our guide books for the start of the day’s walk, and set off, first having to navigate that road. Immediately we crossed it, and started towards the great hill where the path began. Immediately we got lost! To be frank, we could not quite believe that the path was where it was supposed to be. It was steep, narrow, bramble-ridden and strewn with rocks and straight away I was a bath of sweat in my lilac pack-a-mac, and wishing I had my asthma pump handy. My nerves were jangling because of the apparent difficulty of the upcoming day's walk, which didn't make things any easier.

We were working our way to the top of the steep hill and eventually the land evened out a little, but it certainly was not easy walking. We mimed songs for each other to guess. Helen did a passable impression of Kate Bush dancing to Wuthering Heights which thankfully nobody else was around to witness, except for a few sheep. We reached the top, looking down at the sea distantly crashing on the rocks, skirting our way around craggy outcrops and always, always failing to avoid the sheep shit. It was very high, and very windy, and very beautiful. We peered ahead in trepidation as the wind gusted alarmingly and a fine rain closed in.

Sheep, unimpressed by shenanigans and Kate Bush impersonations. They are just so hard to impress, sheep.

I remember that day was hard. The problem with a week’s walking holiday is that a week is made of seven days. And every day you ache a bit more. You have a few more blisters and a little less energy at the start of the day. Failing to find the path was more disheartening on this day because I'd started the walk with aching legs. It was a steep climb up to the top and we then walked along the ridge eventually reaching dramatic cliffs and on to the nature reserve at Penderi. Its supposed to be filled with sessile oaks according to the guide book but to be honest I wouldn’t know what a sessile oak was if it fell on me and it was raining and blowing a small gale. I was concentrating more on not falling over and less on the foliage around me.

We reached the ruined farm at Ffos-las which has a derelict caravan in front of it that I think was used in the series Hinterland. The place had that slightly eerie bleakness about it. At the time we were walking the Cymru Noir series was yet to be made so we didn’t have to wade through gruesome murder victims on the walk. The path cut inland after the lonely farm and we eventually arrived at the holiday centre at Morfa Bychan. Rhys Ddu, who fought beside Owain Glyndwr used to live here at one time before he ended up being tortured to death in London. Which must have put a bit of a crimp on his day. I felt for the guy, my feet were killing me. As we started to leave the site we saw two people and a very small, panting dog, walking towards us. And hurrah! This pair looked in worse shape than us. More to the point she was wearing flip flops.

The man spoke, ‘Is it far to Aberaeron from here?’

Rhian and I looked at each other.

‘A fair way,’ she said. ‘We left there yesterday morning,’ I added.

He looked horrified. Mrs Flipflop looked murderous. He was going to be out of luck if he fancied a bit of how's-your-father that night. Or for quite a while. ‘YOU said it wasn’t far!’ she said. ‘We have already walked from Aberystwyth!’ He looked desperate, no nookie for the rest of the month at this rate.

Rhian tried to change the subject, ‘Have you walked all the way in those flipflops?’

The woman looked at us as if we were mad for asking such a question, ‘No, of course not. I started walking in shoes and they rubbed me’.

‘Could you put them on? The next section is quite hard.’

‘No, they HURT ME, and they had got a bit muddy so I threw them away.’

We looked shocked.

‘Over a cliff’, she added. At this he looked panicked. If they walked on, he was going to follow the shoes. We showed them where they could cut in land and hopefully get a bus back into Aber. And they walked away, with the woman flip flopping several feet ahead of him, as he gave in and carried the exhausted dog.

We stopped for a while and looked at the next section. It was a steep climb up and a steep descent down Allt-wen after a mile or so of more cliffside walking. The rain was worse and the wind blowing even harder. I felt that we were teetering on the edge of danger. Two landladies and a group of super fit German women had had warned us about the last section. I was bricking it before we found out that it had cost Mrs Flipflop her shoes. At that point we took the sensible decision to walk inland, away from the wind, walking down to Penygraig. After a while the sun came out and the walk was beautiful.

We picked up a path that took us along the Afon Ystwyth which was edged with trees and flat.

With every step we got closer and closer to Aberystwyth and the end of the holiday. I was elated and bereft at the same time. I wanted to rest but at the same time I didn’t want this to stop. We had worked hard to cover the ground and I was so proud of what we had achieved. This walk had really changed me on some visceral level. I was getting overwhelmed with emotion and looked across to Rhian. She was looking pensive.

Knackered was another way of putting it. But yes, I also felt really proud of both of us for doing something that had seemed so daunting at the start, and sad that we had reached the end. I learned a great deal over the miles we had covered, about both of us. It was an emotional last few miles. Here we were, two women hurtling towards retirement, pensions and free bus passes, but we had started something. Something important. She's not wrong.

‘Fish and chips on the front?’

‘Too bloody right. And then alcohol’

Specifically a long Island Iced Tea in a rather fantastic cocktail bar Mine was a Singapore Sling, and I listened patiently as Helen selected an anthology of John Milton from the bookcase next to us and began quoting from it. It really was a wonderful establishment though I'm not sure I was up to epic poetry at that point!

The Libertine

But before all of that we had cake.

Cowing lush, as they say in Bridgend.

We had walked bloody miles and not lost a pound of flab. I wonder why?