Welshpool to Porth-y-waen

We had a good day today; we started walking at about 8.30 from Welshpool; Carol and Phil started the walk with us too.  After crossing a couple of fields we got to the path along the river Severn, and then a little further took us to the path along the Montgomery canal.  The first 10 miles of the walk were all flat as we had quite a lot of river and canal walk to do.  We were very blessed with the weather again; we only had a couple of showers, despite the forecast saying that we could have had more.  After the first part of the canal, we went away from there to follow the path of the dyke again.  Carol and Phil left us at that point and walked a bit further along the canal before doubling back to the bus.  We carried on across fields and found a great stop for elevenses; the owners of the house had put out chairs and there was cake to buy, and chickens to share it with!  We carried on following the river, through fields of cows who gave us the once over!
We then found the canal again.  We kept seeing canoeists on the canal and eventually found out that they were doing a triathlon, which entailed them cycling from Newtown to Welshpool, then canoeing a few miles then running or walking the last section - a total of 35 miles.  They were doing it to raise money for the rejuvenation on the canal.
Carol saw one lady paddling a coracle! ( a round Welsh boat)
 And we saw the canoeists at various points struggling to take the canoes in and out to avoid obstructions and locks, and helpers handing out bananas - they even gave some our group one!

Jigsaw puzzle box lunch spot.

The original plan for today was for it to be just 11 miles and finish at Llanymynech where the canoeists were finishing at .  But as we have a long 17 mile walk later in the week, Tim thought (and we agreed) that it would be good to add a couple of miles to the next day or two's walks to reduce the 17 miles to about 14. So we finally finished our  walk at Porth-y-waen.

One fascinating fact the we have been discussing during this walk is whether putting sheeps wool on your feet prevents blisters.  Before we came away we had some relations stay with us from New Zealand.  They had just done the Queen Charlotte walk (we had done a day of this walk when we were in New Zealand earlier in the year, and it was fabulous) , but they had told us of several people on their walk who were putting sheep wool next to your feet.  I couldn't quite get my head round this, so have 'googled' it and found that you can buy the fleece which has been lightly washed (so some of the lanolin remained) and carded and a short video of how you put it on your feet.  So Pat thought she would try this idea - the only trouble is that we didn't have the proper fleece, but there are plenty of welsh sheep around, so we have collected some off fences that looked fairly clean.  So as Pat had some quite poorly toes, she tried wrapping the fleece around her toes - and amazingly it has worked!  Her toes are not as red and it wasn't painful to walk downhill.  So I might wrap some round the heels tomorrow and see what happens!!

I might also have to report that last night we had a game of cribbage - I was partnered with Lin and we played Steve W and George - well we won 2 games - the boys weren't very happy!  Steve was really pleased with himself when he scored 24, but believe it or not, I also had a score of 24 in the same round!!