Скачать или смотреть Marcher Castles Way - part 1 (days 1 and 2)

Marchers Castles Way day 1&2

Had been planning on riding this route with Richard at some point soon but the week of good weather jolted us into doing it this week at short notice.

The route is 180 miles crisscrossing the Welsh/English border. A mixture of on and off road and we are planning on wildcamping each night.

Left Cornwall early on Monday and arrived in Clun around 1pm. So, a half day to start. Leaving Clun we were on the road for a bit but mostly quiet country lanes. After a few miles we started the steep climb up onto Kerry ridge which would take us to our camp spot for the night. Riding through a forest we noticed that the puddles there were icy, an omen for later.

We left the forest and climbed up towards the moorland we’d seen on the map. Bit boggy in places but we found a decent spot amongst the wild ponies. It did turn out to be a freezing night, the tent was iced up and it felt cold. Had an ok nights sleep but had weird dreams.

We had to wait a bit in the morning so that the tents could thaw out in the sun. We set off on the way to Newtown where we had a well deserved cooked breakfast. Leaving Newtown we followed the Severn way which runs beside an abandoned canal. Easy riding for a few miles.

We decided to take a look at Montgomery castle, it was obviously once a commanding position above the village. Popped into the village for a few supplies in the shop as we had a couple of big climbs coming up.

First one was a steep and long climb up to the pass between Lan Fawr and Corndon hill. Nice up on top and had a nice decent down to Mitchell’s Fold stone circle. I’ve seen better. 😂

Really muddy coming down through the forest, worst yet. But we met some really friendly horses, which is unheard of on my trips. Gave them some strokes and grass and said hello to the neighbouring sheep and lambs and we were off.

Took a quick Look at where Rich lived as a kid for a bit and then it was the final big climb of the day.

We were aiming for the devils chair in the Stipertones NP. But that meant another long steeep climb to get up to the ridge line. I huffed my way up and stopped for water by climbing down a slippery gully to a stream. Water collected we pressed on and arrived at the chair where we struggled to find a good pitch. All there was was a bit of cut braken which wasn’t particularly flat. But actually, I pitched my tent on a slight dip in the ground and it’s really comfortable.

Bit windy tonight so hope that will help with condensation. Cold though.

Thanks for watching and see you for the next instalment. 😁