After breakfast on Saturday 13th November, we wandered up Victoria Street into the High Street and then around the corner and up the hillside into Church Street towards St Mary's Church. Crossing the grounds of the church, we headed up Ridgebourne Road past Hergest Croft Gardens. The road eventually peters out into a dirt track, reaching Hergest Ridge, where glorious views of the surrounding countryside greeted us. As mentioned elsewhere on this website on an earlier trip, Hergest Ridge was also the title of Mike Oldfield's second album. The walk then crossed the English-Welsh border, descending into the Welsh town of Gladestry. The village, in the heart of the Welsh Marches, lies on the Offa's Dyke Path between Hay-on-Wye and Kington, at the centre of one of the few remaining unspoilt areas of outstanding natural beauty left in Britain. Offa's Dyke (Welsh: Clawdd Offa) is a massive linear earthwork, roughly following some of the current border between England and Wales. In places, it is up to 20 metres wide (including its flanking ditch) and 2.5 metres high. In the 8th century it formed some kind of delineation between the Anglian kingdom of Mercia and the Welsh kingdom of Powys.

Just outside the town a sign marks the Offas Dyke walk, so we ascended the hillside once more past a farm near Wain Wen, stopping for lunch, whilst taking in the splendid views back towards Gladestry and Hergest Ridge beyond. From here the group split up, one led by Gordon heading back toward Kington, whilst the rest of us, led by Tim, headed towards a hill covered in heather, known as Cefn-hir, close to Colva Hill. Though paths had been shorn in the heather, none led to the summit of the hill and we found ourselves bounding across the heather and the uneven terrain beneath our feet. Concious of the fact that the daylight hours were fast drawing to a close and that we still had Hergest Ridge to cross on our return to Kington, we knew we had to increase our stride substantially. The way down from the hillside took a different route to that of our ascent and this led to some uncertainty on the part of our navigators. On the ascent of the ridge, we head the sound of bugles and barking beagles and a fox hunt was spotted in the distance. The air grew distinctly chillier a dusk fast approached whilst on the ridge, though I found myself engaged in conversation with Ruth, whose work involves raising money for charities outside the United Kingdom from large corporate organisations. Back at the Old School bunkhouse, I downed a refreshing Magners cider before showering and heading off early to the Oxford Arms once again for dinner, returning to the hostel well before ten for a tea in the cosy lounge.