June 22, 2024
To Forden
It feels like we’re leaving Wales as we cross the Long Bridge for the last time and then turn east along the Severn. We’ve got fifty miles to cover over the next two days between here and Shrewsbury, the end of this section of the tour - on Monday we’re booked for another train connector, up to Yorkshire. We’re breaking the distance almost exactly in half, at the Railway Inn just a mile this side of Forden and two miles shy of the Wales/England border.
Wales isn’t quite done with us yet though, as it reminds us with a succession of three steep climbs in the first five miles - 14%/13%/13% I think, just the Welsh standard. Painful, but at least we’re on a good surface on an almost completely empty road. I’d mapped out an alternate route on a busier road that skirted around these first climbs and avoided some pointless up and downs, but after yesterday’s outing we scrapped the idea. We walked/rode a part of this road yesterday and were uncomfortable enough that we didn’t want to spend eight anxious miles on it.
The scenery was fine of course, when we could see through the woods and hedgerows to it anyway - but after the last two spectacular days I was content to let the GoPro hold the stage. I really should have taken a shot somewhere of a freshly shorn field dotted with bales of hay wrapped in black plastic though - it’s that time of the season and we passed one after another all morning.
I did stop for one shot though, for me the highlight of the day: at least ten red kites hovering above a newly plowed field, apparently scavenging behind a tractor turning up the soil. Among the other things I’ll miss about Wales, I’ve really been enjoying my daily diet of red kite sightings.
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After the last of those three annoying gutter spikes we enjoyed a relaxing several miles as we dropped to the Severn and followed it on the flats to Caersws where we had a decision to make. Partway down the slope we caught up with and passed a walker energetically striding down the road - and then another, and then several more. They all had numbers on their backs so they were clearly out here on an organized event. We finally slowed down enough to ask a pair of women where they were going - Montgomery, still maybe 25 miles off. They started at two this morning, since they had 46 miles to cover!
Later I’ll do the research and find the event page. It’s the Walk Across Wales, sponsored by the Rotary Club. Several distance options were available, but the Full Monty is the 46 mile walk from Machynlleth to Montgomery that passes several of the highlights we saw on our rides and walks from Llanidloes: Glaslyn, Staylittle, Glyndwr’s Way, Clywedog Reservoir, and now here.
Later, I’ll be delighted to discover that the Full Monty is precisely the description for this ride because the final leg is along the Montgomery Canal - known affectionately as the Monty.
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We had two alternate route choices considered for the day, hoping to maximize our biking and minimize our walking time. One was the choice we already bypassed, but the other comes here at Caerws. We can follow the NCN 81, the quiet, recommended route as it climbs steeply up into the hills south of the river before dropping down to it again at Newtown - another significant pointless up and down we’d really rather avoid - or we we could stay on the flats by continuing alongside the river on the B roads - an obvious choice, as long as the traffic doesn’t look too bad. And it doesn’t, we’re happy to discover when we get here.
Beyond Newtown we’re back on the NCN 81 again for about four flat, easy miles that hug the river. Except that the first two are back on the B road because the riverside path is closed here for some reason and we’re detoured off of it; and after that we’re on the NCN route but it’s slow, slightly precarious and prickly as we follow a narrow track on the edge of the Montgomery Canal. It’s a pretty route but so narrow and uneven in spots that you have to go slowly to be sure you don’t slip off into the muck, and someone needs to budge if there’s a walker or biker coming the other way; and also narrow and overgrown enough that we both brush up against the nettles here and there. By the time we finally return to it at Abermule we’ve had enough of it. Pretty though, as you’ll see if you watch the video.
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Video sound track: Sondho, by Nando Lauria
The remaining miles are easy and uneventful as we leave the canal and the NCN To follow the backroads to Forden, a nowhere place that barely shows up on the map. There’s not much in Forden, and even less where we stop a mile short of it at the Railway Inn, the only bookable lodging we could find around here. It’s enough though - a bed for the night, and a decent restaurant that we confirmed ahead of time would be open and serving.
We’re greeted by the casually dressed and somewhat disheveled lady of the house, Alice, who’s quick to point out that our room won’t be available until 4 - nearly two hours from now. We knew that though and just planned to grab a meal and wait around until check-in. So she shows us where to park the bikes, looks askance at our bike shoes and asks us to remove them before walking on her hardwood floors, points us to an available table (they’re all available - there’s no one here at the moment but the three of us) - and then takes our drink order, delivers it, and then disappears for probably a full ten minutes.
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There’s some muttering and growling by the time Alice returns, but when she does she’s a woman transformed. Gone is the rather frowsy look that greeted us and now her hair’s been done up nicely and she’s dressed in her server’s outfit. Rachael compliments her on its pleasing plum shade, and Alice smiles and pronounces herself as looking sharp and proper for the role.
She takes our order, disappears again for another fifteen minutes (it wouldn’t surprise me to find out she’s also the chef) and returns with a pair of quite nice grilled salmon plates. And then surprises us by taking the seat at the table next to us for a chat that continues for the next half hour, until the meals are dispensed of and the room is available. It’s quite an interesting conversation, bringing out the good and bad of traveling in a land where you speak the same language. Sometimes it’s great being able to have a conversation, but sometimes you’d rather not know and let your imagination fill in the blanks.
Alice is an interesting woman, with a background I didn’t quite understand. She’s owned this hotel for the last nine years, but before that she had a professional career developing education curriculums that took her other parts of the British Empire - Scotland, New Zealand and Australia in particular.
As she talks about her life though, stray comments keep coming in that hint at her view of the world - comments about the aboriginals in Australia, or people that come to England wanting a handout and a free ticket to the national health system. When there’s a lull in the conversation I decide to probe this by asking her thoughts on the upcoming election. She crosses her eyes at the poor choices available and the fact that the Liberals will certainly win this time and ruin the country, and then acknowledges that she really likes Nigel Farage, of all people. So that’s revealing.
And then Alice floors us with a theory on global warming that we haven’t heard before, that may or may not have been spoken in jest. It could be because of all the migration she says, of all of these millions moving to Western Europe from across the planet hoping to find a better life (including that free health care in the UK they’ll feel entitled to when they get here). The mass of all of these new people on this side of the sphere has likely tipped the balance so it’s tilting off its axis. Something like that could certainly disrupt the climate in a big way, don’t you think?
We’ll remember this conversation when we get to France in a few months and don’t know what anyone around us is saying once again. There’s good and bad in that too.
After we get settled into our room we both take off on walks. Rachael has mapped out a spider shape that goes out to dead ends in three directions - near the river one way, near the river another way, and up to the actual town of Forden for the third. She gets her six miles in, but it’s not a particularly good walk. She’s on the road most of the way, her spurs never actually reach the river, and she comes back only with photos of Forden’s church. Not the most inspiring, but not surprising either. We had modest expectations of Forden and got the room and meal we came here for.
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For myself, I take the four mile round trip to a nearby small wildlife refuge, the Dolydd Hafren Nature Reserve. It’s a mile walk on the pavement to its turnoff, then another half mile down a dirt road to its entrance gate, and then about another half mile on a grassy path along the margin between a plowed field and the woods until I reach an elevated birding blind. I climb up, look out the window, and am hopeful when I see right below me a small wetland fed by what looks like splits from the river that flows not far away.
There’s not much to be excited by today though - a heron, a pheasant, some swallows, a few coots, a few mallards about does it. When I leave I see there’s a notebook on the shelf where people can record their sightings and some of the lists are pretty impressive. They’re nearly all dated from the winter months though, which must be when the place comes to life.
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I’m backtracking up that dirt road on my way back to the hotel when I get a call from Rachael. She’s distressed because she’s missing a pile of her clothes - a bike shirt, some shorts, several other things. She’s looked everywhere inside and outside the hotel, asked at the front desk, but they’re not to be found. There’s been a flurry of episodes like this lately - she’s definitely lost her black sweater and one of the iPad chargers and UK current adapters, but this one really doesn’t make sense. Surely she’d have noticed if she’d been missing that much bulk when she packed, so they must be somewhere. I throw out some suggestions (but she’s already checked them all) and tell her I’ll be home in about forty minutes.
When I arrive, she’s sitting at a table by the bar waiting for her cheesecake to arrive. She found her clothes, so she’s much happier now and in a mood to celebrate with a treat. The missing clothes were stuck in a chest of drawers, a place she hadn’t thought to look. It seems only right to help her celebrate so I order a massive burger and another round of Shropshire’s finest, which goes well with about half of the scoop of vanilla on her cheesecake.
Today's ride: 25 miles (40 km)
Total: 2,316 miles (3,727 km)
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