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Kington & Hergest Ridge, Herefordshire 12th - 14th November 2010 [1] |
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Situated in the west country
of England in Herefordshire lies the village of Kington. The town is in the
shadow of Hergest Ridge, which traverses the border between England and
Wales. Located in the town is the Old School Bunkhouse. My
last
visit
to
this
wonderfully
cosy
Youth
Hostel
was
way
back
in
2004,
though
I
suspect
that
the
hiking
club
may
have
been
back
there
since.
Notwithstanding the stunning beauty of the region, I acquired an added interest in Hergest Ridge when I discovered that it was here that Mike Oldfield once lived and flew radio-controlled aircraft, at the time when he recorded his second album of the same name. Prior to leaving on this weekend hike in 2010, I had made an initial enquiry to John Adams for a lift. John normally has the sometimes thankless task of acquiring all provisions for the weekend. specifically for breakfast Saturday and Sunday, and so I think that much of his effort goes unnoticed or is taken for granted. Martin is chiefly responsible for planning ahead and ensuring that we have bookings secured a year in advance. That leaves Steve as Mr Moneybags, so to speak. In fact our breakfast Sunday took a novel twist when we had an AGM and the financial state of the club was made clear to one and all, a sign that it was more than just alive and kicking. |
It was a healthy turnout on this occasion, 24 persons in total! Some new faces came along too in the form of Nicole Canuet and her husband John Humphries. Nicole is also employed by the company whose name the hiking club bears, thus, along with Gordon Farquhar and myself, increasing the company membership, radically reduced in recent times with the departure of Maeve Weber, to three. There was also the welcome return of Heather White and Ruth Baker, who had been invited to the club by Vanda, photographer extraordinaire, who sadly missed the trip. John had planned to travel down to Kington earlier in the week, as he always does, along with Bernard Gardner and Tim Porter, thus taking advantage of the time to get in a number of walks, all three being retired and therefore with much time on their hands probably being a perception rather than reality. The call was for a 06h00 departure from Welwyn Garden City on Wednesday of that week. Since my trip to Patagonia in March, my available had dwindled to the extent that I preferred a lift with Gordon, who was leaving on the Friday morning, at a somewhat more reasonable hour, I might add. And so it was that we headed down the highway around 09h30. Kington in Herefordshire is an historic market town on the English/Welsh border, and though on the western side of Offa's Dyke, it has been an English town for a thousand years. The destination was the Old School Bunkhouse, located in Victoria Road, a gorgeous rambling double-storey red brick building with the loos so large you could probably just fit a camping bed in it. As usual, I was allocated my own room (for reasons, see instruction which states "earplugs are recommended"). The room allocation was as follows: |
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Gordon and I made good time, with no bad traffic to speak of and arrived at the hostel in the rain, around 14h00. Peter Mathews and his Labrador Abby had got there just before us and given that we only due to check in around three, we all agreed on a walk about the town centre to pass the time. Peter was on a reconnoitre in search of suitable small properties on behalf of someone. At a local greengrocer up the High Street, I bought some delicious sweet dates and even went back for more. We ended up extending the walk to the perimeter of the town along Bridge Street over the River Arrow and back along a section of the A44 before re-entering via Victoria Street. Our search for a quality restaurant or pub for dinner yielded results that may be best be described as adequate and we settled on the Oxford Arms just up the road. Beautiful though the surrounding country side certainly is, I would suspect that business in the area has been hard hit by the recession. After settling in and waiting for others to arrive, we first popped in at Ye Olde Tavern, a delightful little pub towards the A44 side of town that might easily be mistaken for a residence, to wet the backs of our throats. Having that afternoon tucked into my remaining sandwiches I'd packed for the road, I was content with just a soup for dinner. |
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[UK - index] [Home Page] Kington & Hergest Ridge 2010 [1] [2] & Croft Castle |
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