Day 22 - Sunday April 26th. John drove us back to Craignant where we had ended yesterday, and we bade him farewell and set off for a delightful morning in the sunshine, walking up and down the hills of mid Wales. And the hills were very steep at times, if only a few hundred feet high, but the views at the top were great. The dyke was quite high at this point with a well-preserved ditch - it's amazing how it has stood the test of time, running mostly through farmland and with trees growing out of it.
We descended into a deep valley to get good views of Chirk Castle from below. There followed a 400 foot climb through woods and fields, and we found ourselves on fields looking down on the same castle. The air was sparkling clear,so the views over England to the east and over the castle to the south were huge, and we could see back to some hills we had been on in previous days. There followed a more gradual descent down to the Llangollen Valley and you could see why Offa had put his dyke along here as his guards would have had uninterrupted views over all the country below.
We wound down through the little hilly streets of Froncysyllte, reaching the Shropshire Union Canal (again) just below the village, but still high above the valley floor. The canal unusually took a 90 degree bend to the North at this point, and was very busy with canal boats and people watching and walking. The canal then crosses the Llangollen Valley and the River Dee 165 feet up in the air by an Aqueduct! It is just wide enough to enable canal boats to cross with about 6 inches to spare on each side. There is also a footpath on the east side which was busy with walkers. It was built by Thomas Telford in the nineteenth century, and is an extraordinary construction, especially since it is still useable 150 years later! The Llangollen branch canal continues on the north side of the aqueduct.
We stopped for a pint of shandy at the Telford Arms and heard the locals talking about jobs being lost and exported as factories closed down. We were now in an industrial development on the approaches to Wrexham and the countryside we were walking through changed dramatically. We were in maze-like streets of little houses between large factories, and there was the usual mess associated with such places, vacant lots, litter, dereliction in some places. Our route took us up the hill and out of the urban sprawl back onto fields and farms on the east side of Eglwyseg Mountain - this was very different from the soft grass-covered ridges we had been on during previous days, and was a high rounded moorland covered in heather. After about 6 miles of country lanes, we dropped down to villages that lie to the West of Wrexham - these have sprawled into housing estates that are utilitarian, and far from interesting. Lower down, we were amongst older houses, normally terraces of small stone houses on steep winding roads.
We started to tire as we walked up and down miles of these streets - it's much more tiring than attractive fields and woods! For a while we had to follow a path between a railway and a high fence, which opened out into a strip a rough woodland. This ended at a railway bridge over the A483 dual carriageway which we had to cross safely. We thought the path would then continue along the railway but were disappointed because it dissolved into scrub, and we were forced to climb a high steep bank, which was far from easy with tired legs, and take the lane above into Gresford. Only a couple of miles to go, and we were now in streets that were much easier, being flat, and prosperous than those on the north side of the tracks.
We were being met at Marford to which the most direct route was through a wood on a footpath. We found a path and it was a pleasant last section through the trees, but then it transpired that this particular path went the wrong side of an old quarry, which added 15 minutes to our walking day and made us late. Thus the last part of the day turned out to be the most difficult once more, and I felt as if I'd put my body through the mill. However we were in Annona 's car before long, driving through the sunlit Cheshire countryside. She treated us royally, and I had a wonderful bath followed by the most delicious home-cooked meal. We also met Annona's neighbours, who were curious about these two 'gentlemen' who were suddenly spending a night with this mature single lady.