The walk from Trefonen (pronounced treh-VO-nen) to Llangollen (pronounced lan-GUH-[throat-clearing sound]-en) is on the long side at about 17 miles (my info sheet calls it 16, but my calculations from the guidebook and a bit of basic math call bullshit), but it’s neither as boring as much of the last two days walking, nor as demanding as the Black Mountains or the Clwyd Mountains that lie ahead. It’s a good, pleasant walk, neatly punctuated at the halfway mark by Chirk Castle, another very old fortification that, like Powis Castle on day 17, went from fort to family home to National Trust property.

But last night at the only place to eat in Trefonen, I had an encounter that was both reassuring and a bit worrisome. When I arrived, my B&B hostess said I was one of two Americans staying that night. I retired to my room to shower and nap, so I didn’t meet him at the house. But when I went down to the pub, I ended up sharing a table with him for dinner, because it was pretty crowded. He’s a scientist who specializes in radar, and works for Georgia Tech as non-teaching faculty, part of a unit that basically does government work. He’s doing the dyke north to south (I, of course, and doing it from the south end to the north), so it seemed like a good chance to swap info on what’s coming. But everything that came out of his mouth made me worry not for myself (I’ll be fine) but for him. He found it amusing that on his first day in Prestatyn, his B&B hostess was alarmed that he didn’t have a guidebook or maps. He’d used a different travel company than mine, and they’d sent him direction sheets for the end of each day (“When you come to the bridge before Welshpool, your accommodation is 250 meters down the road to the left” kind of thing), but no maps or guides. He’d figured he could just follow the signs. Uh oh. She’d actually sent her son with him in a car to a store to buy a guidebook, but alas no ordinance survey maps. Uh oh still. Then he said that he’d been sick a few weeks before coming over, and trying to do that first day had made him sick again, so he had used a taxi to finish it. Uh oh. In fact, the section from Llangollen to Trefonen was the first day he’d done a complete walk. Uh oh again. Then he described getting lost a fair number of times. Oh dear. And finally, when I was talking about the advantages of walking in shorts versus long pants, he announced that he was walking in jeans and wearing flannel shirts. Uh oh in the extreme. When jeans get wet, or even damp with sweat, they stay wet, and wear like concrete. Flannel holds sweat. This nervous, birdlike scientist is a jogger, and seemed astonished that doing four or five miles of jogging a day hadn’t prepared him for the demands of hills. I felt like calling for a helicopter to preemptively airlift him off the trail, or possibly straight out of that pub.

But it did reaffirm for me that I’m actually good at this, and well-prepared. I started my morning hike early, getting out of there before he came down to breakfast, because I couldn’t bear to see his worried face after my suggestion at the pub the night before that he try to find ordinance maps and maybe some light hiking pants and sweat-wicking shirts in Welshpool—fat chance, but worth a try. Good luck, oh unprepared hiker.

After a few pleasant miles in small wooded valleys and rising up a hill, I came to a place that served in the 19th century as a racecourse. At the kissing gate before the high open public common, I met this charming gent out walking his dog.

He’s in his late 70s or maybe early 80s, I’d guess, and his dog is a friendly black and white herding dog, whom he warned me might want to jump up on me. In fact, the dog was totally calm. The old gent did a classic conversational opening volley, asking where I’d come from this morning and where I was headed. I replied, and once I’d signalled that I was open to chat, he said “I’ll walk up the racerouse with you for a bit” and was off and running, telling me about the course, his dog (just two, still a pup really), the people from the big cities like Northampton who come here to walk, how his grandson had to do a school report on a state in America and picked Montana (“That’s near Chicago, isn’t it?” “Sort of…”), and just about anything. He reminded me of some Irish people I’ve met, gregarious to the point that it’s very hard to end a conversation with them. Even as I was walking on where he’d decided to stop (he walked with a big staff, but I think he uses a staff to save his dignity because a staff looks better than a cane), I had to turn and respond to a few last gambits, pausing three times (ten feet away, twenty, thirty) to just put the finishing touches on our chat. Never got his name, he never got mine, he was just happy for someone to talk to. If I’d sat down,  I could have been there with him for hours.

More good hills brought me, after about 8 miles, to Chirk Castle, where, once again as at Powis Castle, I had a great tour and got only a few so-so photos. Sorry, but so it goes.

I had a nice tour of the ‘private apartments’ of the castle, which were occupied until 2005 (led by a delightfully plummy-toned, matronly guide who kept apologizing for keeping us so long, but she does love the trivia. We did too.

Then the gods of walking punished me for feeling superior to the other American last night. I made a rookie map-reading mistake, following the automotive entrance drive to Chirk (I’d come in on a backside footpath) and thinking that it was the footpath out of the grounds described in the guide. The real bone-headedness was that I looked at my OS map, and should have easily seen the difference between the curving continuous line of the drive and dotted line to the west of it, coming out of the Chirk grounds and hitting the road somewhere completely different. So when I hit the road, I confidently turned right, as the directions indicated I should when I hit the road, and walked for a good mile and a half, getting increasingly puzzled by how the land wasn’t quite matching the description. More peering at the map led to a horrible realization and a rather loudly uttered oath, which was not, I assure you, “Darn.”

So, I retraced my steps to my error, headed left instead og right to where I should have come out to the road, and with much relief and self-castigation, regained the trail a good 45 minutes after I should have.

And just as my mood was clearing up and I was feeling good again, I met a man walking his dog on a tiny country road. I could see as I approached that the dog, on a leash, wanted to be friendly, but instead of pulling at the leash, it sat down, which I thought odd. The man was ahead of me, headed in the same direction I was, so at first he didn’t notice me thirty yards off, only that his dog kept trying to sit. So he’d say something angry and pull at the leash. Ah, that’s why the dog wasn’t pulling at the leash to come meet me—its master is a jerk, and it knows that tugging at the leash is trouble. As I came closer, I realized that the man was texting on a cellphone, and from yards away, was radiating an air of irritation. Since the lane was so narrow, it would have been impossible to pass by without some acknowledgment, so I said a very neutral but open “hello.” His response, not looking up from his texting: “Right.”

So, hey, guy walking your dog on a country road on a sunny September afternoon, stop and enjoy what you’ve got going on here, and stop being mean to your dog.

But I was not going to let him get me down, and my good mood returned for some pleasant walking through rolling, not often steep, hills. And then the path rejoined a section of canal for a while, and this part is active with people living on canal boats, or renting them, or dining on them.

And the canal crosses a valley and a river by way of an aqueduct of great drama.

And at this point I was four miles from Llangollen and the end of my day. I had a choice—follow the canal tow path on its level course into Llangollen, or climb a rising road that approaches the lonely hill with Castell Dinas Bran, a spectacular 13th century ruin, atop it. Guess which I did.

All in all, a fantastic day.

Miles walked: With my diversion at Chirk, a stunning 17.5 miles. Oof.