Sunday 28 June 2009

Lost In Wales

Well, I am back from Wales. My general thoughts on the Principality remain unchanged from what they were two years ago. This time we also had rain - a steady Welsh rain - and we got lost. It was one of those walks that look fine on the map, but on the ground... Oh dear, another story altogether. Our misadventures began with a well maintained stile that led directly into an impenetrable thicket of brambles, nettles, hawthorn etc that there was no getting through. A long detour through swampy, boot-sucking, undrained fields culminated in a rather desperate breakout, via a barbed wire fence with a deep ditch on the far side and barely penetrable growth around a lost hollow way, back onto the route, along a footpath that crossed a muddy, meandering river. Except that it didn't. Where two paths met from either bank, there was no crossing. The nearest was a mile or so further along, where a footbridge was clearly marked. Already sodden to the knees and above, we wet off to find that bridge. This involved getting over a tributary stream by means of another long, muddy detour, followed by another, worse commando-style assault on a barbed wire fence, more barely penetrable undergrowth, the stream itself, and much mud - in the course of this assault, all but one of us (me, by sheer luck) fell over, either in water or mud. When our bedraggled, torn and mud-spattered crew eventually hauled ourselves out of the wood and into an open field, we realised, having got our bearing, that this gruelling detour had gained us perhaps 30 yards of progress along the river. However, we were nearing that footbridge - that much was certain.
At this point, a tractor appeared, accompanied by three excited sheepdogs. Aboard the tractor was a farmer - the first human being we had seen since the walk began. He steered towards us and stopped, and we realised with relief that he was amiably disposed and not about to order us off his land. We inquired about the footbridge. He thought a moment, then 'No' he said, 'there's no bridge. There was a bridge, but it got smashed up.' Another pause for thought. 'A tank went over it in the war and smashed it up.' So much for the Ordnance Survey map, updated 2007 - and so much for our hopes of getting across that river without having to wade it (and it really didn't look very wadable).
At this point, our walk turned into a Famous Five adventure, as the kindly farmer offered to ferry us across the river in his tractor. It was an old Massey Ferguson, with just room for two to perch beside the driver, hanging on to whatever was at hand. And so this providential farmer took us across that river, two by two, and we, tired, wet, muddy but very very grateful, resumed - and replanned - our walk. What were the lessons of this experience? That even up-to-date OS maps should be taken with a pinch of salt - at least in wild west Wales. That it is amazingly easy, in this overcrowded country, to find yourself seriously lost and up against seriously difficult terrain - and not to see a single human soul around - even when you are ostensibly quite close to human habitation. And that there are nice, helpful farmers - yes, even in Wales.
You're probably wondering about the picture. That's from St Teilo's Church, reconstructed at the superb outdoor museum at St Fagan's, which we visited on our return journey. The church has not only been rebuilt on the museum site but restored to the kind of painted polychrome glory in which it would have appeared around 1520. It works wonderfully well. There is more about it - and more images - here.

10 comments:

  1. You lacked the single most important ingredient in the making of a Welsh trek Nige, Jones the Sherpa.
    Today's OS maps are a vast improvement on their fifties cousins, leading you, as they did, into the midst of the unmarked Otterburn firing ranges sans tin hat.

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  2. What an adventure! I hope your party had a thoroughly good time. It sounds as if you could easily have been chased by bands of orcs and had to bail at midnight from a B&B run by zombies whose idea of a good breakfast was roast leg of Nige. I'd guess there are quite a lot of wild places in Britain, even in the south-east. That church, even on the website, sounds wonderful and comes across as a tranquil, healing kind of place.

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  3. Sounds excellent fun, Nige, and started me on tractor-related reminiscences of the old country. It may put you off further trips to Wales but they're here anyway.

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  4. Tried to post comment on that Gaw, but it didn't work - here's the gist... I feel I understand a bit more about that mystifying country (tho I'm actually an eighth Welsh, and Mrs Nige a whole quarter). Sounds a bit like the kind of thing than went on at the farm my family stayed at when I was nobut a lad, on the Welsh borders. I remember the sons - lunatics both, and apparently never sober - taking me and my bro up over the tops at night, off road in an A40 van, bouncing and lurching about at incredible speed (no seatbelts in those days), headlights on, shooting out of the windows at whatever showed up. What were our parents thinking of?

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  5. And you're right about sherpas Malty - and about the church Mark, full of people tho it was - never saw so many people evidently enjoying a church on such a humble scale - it really works...

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  6. Man up Nige, that sounds like a pretty standard stroll over this side of the world!

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  7. These disastrous walks are almost worth it for the stories.

    A couple of Christmasses ago I was walking the back lanes from Croyde to Braunton with my dad and the missus, when we came head to head with a tractor and a hay-stuffed trailer which was exactly as wide as the lane. There being no widened passing point anywhere visible behind us, and the farmer being considerably less friendly than your Taff and refusing to reverse, a stand-off ensued.

    Eventually we came to the only possible solution: we had to get down on hands and knees and crawl through the gap beneath the overhanging sides of the trailer. During the process of this crawling, it became apparent that the 'hay' in the trailer, which caressed us as we wriggled past, was in fact the most awful reeking sileage in the history of farming. Later all coats, jumpers, trousers and hair had to be washed multiple times to shift the odour. I think my dad ended up burning his hat.

    And of course, on reaching the other side of the tractor we found an ample passing point 20 yards back. We bellowed black unChristmassy curses at the farmer's retreating rattle.

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  8. Ha! Great stuff Brit - it's not often a man gets the chance to burn his hat...

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  10. Good grief! Don't tell me - the second prize is a whole week...

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