Robin’s Walk and AXA PPP Step Up ChallengePontcysyllte Aqueduct, Irish Bridge, Chirk Castle, Castle Mill, Craignant, Baker’s Hill and Racecourse Common.
This morning we meet the MS Society Wrexham Branch near the amazing aqueduct near Llangolen. The Wrexham and district branch chair Helen Williams greets us with a warm smile on a cold and wet day. Helen is with her mother Jean Hughes and is joined by Ruby and Tony Blaxhill , and Jeanie and Jeanette Barton. We hear about the great work Helen and her team are doing to support local people with MS. There are 72 members and support a local help line and organise social events such as the upcoming lunch on Tuesday 25th May at the Plough in Gresford, as well as a canal boat trip over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the 23rd June. 
Go along and give these wonderful people support. We hear yet more inspiring stories of people struggling with this disease and finding a way to be positive about life. We note how it attacks people in so many different ways affecting balance, sight and bodily functions. The only thing in common is the horror of the disease.I am gutted, frustrated and annoyed as the pain in my left ankle makes it impossible for me to walk today. I am hobbling even over short distances and in a lot of pain. I feel pathetic and cross with myself.
Rob is a hero again and ordering me to rest it today and he will walk the miles for the cause. After waving goodbye to the Wrexham MS crowd we take Rob to the start of the walk today where he has to cross the Aqueduct. An amazing engineering feat that just makes you marvel at what we humans can do. 
It’s me! Finally I get a chance to write something in the blog. Here goes........The unpronounceable Aqueduct, a world heritage site, is awe inspiring. Built between 1795-1805 and standing on 18 piers, it is a working aqueduct that carries a canal 126 feet above the River Dee. The canal runs through an iron trough 1007 feet long, 12 feet wide and 5 feet deep – just enough to squeeze a barge in. I amble across admiring the fantastic views of the river, tree covered hills, broken up by the occasional field with sheep and cows, a deep green everywhere - Llangollen is a wonderful place. I stop half way over, watching canal boats coming up and down and think what vertigo man would think if he was with me – no head for heights that Williamson. Strongly suspect he’s feigning injury to avoid walking over this marvel.
Walking alone is a new experience for me. Soon I get a call from radio Wrexham Heart’s news desk who know we are in the area. I tell them about Helen and the team and about our campaign and they say they will play it over the next couple of days – the post election shenanigans condemned to the back pages.
Day 4, 2 miles into today’s walk and 43 miles since we started, finally I see Offa’s Dyke. Bit disappointing – looks like a bump in the ground with trees growing out of it. Some miles later as I am climbing a 3 mile relentless rise from Castle Mill where the trail goes literally atop the Dyke, I revise my opinion.This Dyke is no respecter of hills – no going round these;
straight up and down and so goes our path. As I crawl up atop the Dyke it is now powerful and proud – on one side the ditch is 15 feet or so below me. Clearly this is the side whose occupants are meant to be kept out – I take some quick navigational readings and figure out it is the Welsh that live on that side. More about the Dyke in later blogs.
Just before I come to Chirk Castle I meet Allan Brough from the Wirral out for a day’s walk. We chat and he tells me he is an Everton fan – the second I have met today. We chat about the Moores who founded Littlewoods and were the owners of Everton for a long time until the grandson, David, bought Liverpool. It was David who sold the club to the current American owners who are drowning the club in a sea of debt – David was clearly a sleeper, a Manchurian candidate working for the Blue side of city. I tell him the story of 1000miles4hope and he tells me about his neighbour who recently died of MS and gives me a donation for our cause – thank you Allan.This is serious sheep country – wherever I look in every direction I see fields of roaming sheep, numbers strengthened by this season’s spring lambs.
Even the grounds of Chirk Castle (‘is it a fortress or a home’ asks the information board) is open range for sheep as I trek through them to see this magnificent home come fortress atop a hill. As I climb the 3 miles of the Dyke on the other side of the valley, I stop every now again to get my heart below 200 beats per second and admire this wonderful construction perched on its own little moel.
On one of these many stops up the Dyke I meet John, Pauline and Allison resting on the Dyke having a lunch break. They are enjoying a weekend break from their home in Winchester. I take pictures of them with their camera and set off again. 
Up, up, up, interminably up, over ubiquitous stiles that turn this climb into an obstacle course. This is as tough as the worst sections of Day 2. Finally I come out at the top and enjoy the gentle downhill slopes towards Oswestry old racecourse where I have summoned Karen and Len to pick me up, disturbing them from their snooze at the Royal Hotel, reading papers and enjoying tea and cakes.
A tough day, a lonely day – I hope Len’s foot gets better soon; who else can I talk politics too in these uncertain times. And then what about the football ........
No comments:
Post a Comment