White Castles in the sky - May 21

Well this is it -- our last walk for this vacation. So we got brave and had our reward first - kind of like eating dessert first. We had Paul, our host, take us to White Castle to start our journey. This of course was supposed to be our reward at the end, but now being the experienced map readers we are we were up for a new challenge and decided to read the written instructions backwards and we reversed our direction for the day. (aside from L: I know what you are thinking....Good Luck right!)

White Castle turned out to be the most well-preserved of the three castle ruins we have visited, so we are glad we saved it for our last day. Standing in the base of one guard tower we could look up and see ridges where each of the floors above had rested. The one we were in had three floors above and probably a look out tower above that. One tower had the top floor rebuilt of wood slats with spaces between. It was creepy stepping out from the very narrow stone stair well that wound up and out onto these slats knowing that three stories of open space with a hard stone base lay directly below. the view was incredible in all directions, especially as this castle was built atop a hill. Unlike the previous two castle ruins, this castle had an inner and an outer court. The moat ran between the two courtyards, encircling the inner one. This castle is deemd to be the most perfectly moated castle in all of Wales.

And now we must vacate this home of many grey squirrels before the keeper of the gates opens shop and charges us £2.50 each for entering these grounds, which we are finished looking at.

We were not disappointed to find fewer stiles on today's agenda, however the steep inclines both ascending and descending, continued to be plentiful. We discovered that unlike their sheepish relatives, goats are not shy. Instead of turning to skitter away from us when we entered a field which housed goats, they came to greet us. Fortunately they were neither agressive nor accompanied by protective male counterparts or we may have brought home pictures of Leslie head butting one. Picture that!

At one point we rested while admiring yet another panoramic view. As we started off again the breeze carried to us a rather odd aroma. It was less than pleasant shall we say! Oh well, onward and upward, literally. As we came over a stile into the next field, we discovered the source of this assault to our senses. A dead sheep lay rotting in the hot sun, his compatriates lazily grazing all around him. Says something of the loyalty of these rogues doesn't it?

Getting ourselves out of this pasture energized our weary steps once more and we made haste to the stile across the field. Here we were greeted by a dog who was not too anxious to be friendly. He just wanted to do his job and run us off his territory and we were only too willing to oblige.

Carefully stepping between the heartily populated sheep do-do, we were gingerly making our way down a steep incline (should that be called a decline?) when we noticed one sheep with his head tucked through the 3 inch wire mesh fence. He could neither move forward nor back and was panicking as he saw us come nearer. We moved away from him so he would not be so frightened but we felt guilty that we were unable to assist him, knowing that to get close enough to help may have resulted in the injury of at least one of the three of us. The farm house was visible from here and we prayed the owners would be diligent in caring for their flock.

Our instructions now told us to keep the dingle on our left, so as we were reading them backward, we kept the dingle to our right for some time - at least we think we did since we arrived at our destination without the benefit of a Welsh dictionary to inform us the meaning of "dingle".

Next, Leslie got her quota of kisses from a very cute, energetic local (no kidding, this is true). We finally found a stump to park our bottoms on while we had sustenance. Our hostess from the B&B packs great lunches.

We are now closing in on our final destination with but a short jaunt left to go we sighed, knowing that not only was today's trek almost complete, but the same could be said of our long anticipated vacation.

We went for a celebratory coffee - not shandy. It actually was black coffee, very weak, but coffee and it only set us back $10.00 for a cup each. so there you have it, coffee $5.00 a cup.

Upon arrival back at the Old Rectory, our home for the last 4 days, we unpacked and repacked our suitcases for the journey home tomorrow. We went down to the lounge for tea and to write this blog. Before getting past the castle, our blog preparation was interrupted by the arrival of two cyclists who had just arrived for the night. They were anxious to talk our ears off so the blog was set aside until after our scrumptious dinner.

At dinner, we met two other new guests at the B&B. These ladies had walked a mere 18 miles today, which represented day two of a 180 mile walking trek they are on.

So good night. We are homeward bound tomorrow

With love
Leslie and Gloria-Rose