Five-minute read: Richard Vickers requires a bit of sole searching on his multi-day walk in Wales.
In 1983 I walked Offa’s Dyke Path, a 283km trail through Welsh border country. Following an ancient earthwork built by Mercian king, Offa, in the eighth century, it traverses some of Britain’s most spectacular and varied scenery.
Rather naively, I equipped myself at an army surplus store. This led to problems with ill-fitting boots more suited to parade ground drills, and clothing that proved the perfect sponge for soaking up the abundant Welsh rain. Coupled with an excessively weighty rucksack, the walk was always destined to be a trial of endurance rather than a trail of enchantment.
And yet, 13 days later, despite feet and shoulders sporting multi-storey blisters, I made it. Still, I knew there must be a better way. I vowed to repeat the deed one day, though better prepared to appreciate the glorious scenery I’d passed along the way.
And so, 30 years on, I again found myself at Chepstow’s Offa’s Dyke stone, the beginning (or end) of the trail.
Gone were the massive pack, inappropriate clothing and poorly fitting boots that conspired to make my original walk a painful ordeal. I also had two new companions - trekking poles to help me negotiate the myriad hills the path meanders over.
On a superb spring morning I set off on a modest 18km hike designed to ease me back into the routine of long-distance walking. Arriving at my destination, a comfortable B&B, mid-afternoon, I felt in excellent shape.
The following day proved equally pleasurable and I strolled into historic Monmouth in fine spirit. This was walking as nature intended.
It was while lunching next day in the bucolic grounds of White Castle that I first noticed them; those tell-tale hot spots, the birth pangs of blisters. I treated them as best I could, but it wasn’t until late the following day that I could get to a pharmacy. By then they had reached full, painful maturity. I spent big on Compeed, but the synthetic skin would soon become a double-edged sword.
The following day I began to develop blisters on the soles of my feet, something I’d never experienced before. The Compeed made little difference. Worse, it was now indistinguishable from the blistered skin it was adhered to. I trudged through a further day, finally staggering into Knighton, the Welsh border town that is the spiritual home of Offa’s Dyke and the halfway point of the trail.
Resignedly, I called a halt to my adventure. It was perhaps symbolic that I had to cut the socks off my feet piece by piece with a pair of nail scissors, so completely were they stuck to the Compeed. Despite the disappointment of abandoning the trail half way, I’m treating it merely as a strategic withdrawal. King Offa and I have unfinished business...