Wye Valley Walk: Hay-on-Wye to Trericket Mill, Erwood, May 28

May 28 and 29

She said:

I love my suitcase. It’s made by the Swiss Army Knife people and can really take a beating. It is a perfect carry-on. So, when it became increasingly clear that I was pushing its limit each day by having to sit on it and jump up and down on it to get it to zip closed, I decided it was time to purge a bit and send a package home. Our innkeeper at the Old Black Lion found a box for me and I headed out to the Post Office in Hay-on-Wye ahead of the Monday morning, 9 a.m. opening time. I figured there would be a line waiting, and I was right. When I got there, I was third in line and by the time they opened the doors, there were 5 people behind me. Package went off without a hitch.

However, I did learn that the stamps I had been using for postcards and letters were under value and I needed to affix additional postage to the cards I was mailing that day. So, to those of you who I sent cards to prior to Hay-on-Wye, you may not get them. Or, if you do, they may come postage due.

Oh, well.

We headed off from Hay-on-Wye through town with sunny skies and comfortable temps.

We passed Baskerville Hall. Lord Baskerville was a good friend of Arthur Conan Doyle, who stayed at the Hall often and used it as the setting for The Hound of the Baskerville’s. It has the perfect large, creepy country estate look to it.

As usually happens every year when we are out in the middle of nowhere in the countryside, we were treated to a low flying, loud and beautiful RAF jet on its training flight. Powerful and awesome.

Another country church – St. Meilig’s. This one’s claim to fame, in addition to being crazy old, is that it houses a 12^th century, very large Celtic Cross. It is believed that the cross originally stood on a nearby mountaintop and it must have been quite a formidable task to move it to the church as it weighs 3.5 tons. Those crazy Christians!

We had mostly easy walking today through farm fields and pastures. We were at the river’s edge and saw classic river sites – swans and jumping fish and minnows. The minnows are gathered in huge numbers in the shallows by the banks and move in dense schools. A lovely, flowing sight.

11 miles.

Our B+B last night was Trericket Mill, vegetarian B+B. Tre means small village and it the prefix to many names of Welsh places. The Mill is well preserved and the B+B has used the original buildings as the basis for the dining rooms and small bar. It is very interesting to see and learn about the workings of a country Mill and its importance to the economy of the region. It was used to mostly make feed for the farm animals, and its proximity to the River Wye made it convenient for transport. When the railroad came in, the Mill was no longer economically viable. Lucky for us that Nicky and Alistair saw the potential and transformed the old Mill into this excellent B+B, while still retaining all the original history. The huge Mill gears are intact and the room walls are filled with interesting photos and histories. R had a beer and I had a decent (!) Chardonnay.

The Old Black Lion had packed us giant lunches so we still had leftovers that we ate for dinner in our spacious and comfortable room as we watched my favorite UK TV show, Spring Watch. It is on in full, now. Last night’s episode – a fox (a vixen!) with her 11 kits, the barn owls (4 chicks of varying sizes), grass snakes, and a segment on siblicide, the common way that nature ensures survival of the fittest. Good stuff.

Our walk (hike) today will be a series of ups.

He Said:
On the road again today on perhaps the last of the clear warm days we have enjoyed in the past week or more.
The walk was mostly flat and along the river, with a few diversions and climbs up the surrounding valley walls.

The Wye has changed to a shallow river, where a canoe might really need to pick the right line in order to make it through without grounding. There are also the small rapids that appear every half mile or so, and we saw herons and other fishing birds wading in the best spots.

Our B&B for this evening is built into an old water mill that operated until the 1930's, when a railway started to bring in lower cost feed and grain. The gears of the mill are still intact and in place, but disabled now.
We had such large lunches that we ate our 2nd half of it instead of the normal evening meal.

Here are some photos of the day:

Goodbye to Hay-on-Wye