WALK HISTORY
In 1963 five members of West Birmingham YHA Local Group walked from Clun to Nant y Dernol youth hostels, a distance of around 35 miles. During the walk the panoramic views brought up a discussion on the possibility of walking from the border to the sea in one day. The group's rambling leader, Roy Millard, was set the task of working out a route, checkpoints & accommodation, receiving valuable help in this task from the warden at Borth Youth Hostel.
One Saturday in October 1964 twelve group members were dropped off at the border at Felindre, having sent the night at Clun Y.H. They were backed up by another dozen 'supporters' from the YHA group and made their way via Llanidloes, Plynlimon, and Nant y moch to the coast at Borth. The only lady in the party gave up after 26 miles but, keeping together as a group most of the way, the rest all finished. The fist arrivals managed to paddle in the sea after 15 hours 20 minutes of walking but were all completely shattered.
The following year a walk across Wales was repeated with members of other YHA local groups invited and the fastest crossing was reduced to 13 hours 5 minutes. This time they were playing cricket on the beach the following day, whereas the previous year they had just about manage to hobble out to the cars to be chauffeured home!
In 1966 the group made it a national event, charging entrants 10/- to cover transport, refreshments and a certificate and the event has taken place every year since then on the first weekend in September. It soon became apparent that a cut-off time was required for finishing and this was set at 18 hours, regardless of the exact route which has changed slightly over the years but has always been around 45 miles. Since 1982 there have always been a few "Double Crossers" - people starting at the coast at 11am on the Friday who walk eastwards to the border near the Anchor Inn in time to join the start of the official westwards walk the next day!
GOLDEN JUBILEE
Saturday 7th September 2013 saw the 50th edition of the “Across Wales Walk” and this year the organisers Stuart & Judith Lamb allowed a record number of participants. So it was that 156 people set off at 5.10 am up the road towards the Kerry Ridgeway and I was one of them, hoping to successfully complete my 11th “Crossing”.
To celebrate this Golden Anniversary I decided to try and combine the walk with a little geocaching and found as many caches as I could along or close to the route. I also had the idea to create special new caches at the checkpoints and this cache is one of these. Alas it was not possible to do this at the start or finish (because of lack of daylight) or at Check 3 (where a multi & large crowds complicated matters too much) but these will hopefully follow in the not too distant future.
CHECK 1
This comes 8 miles into the walk after walkers have crossed the western end of the Kerry Ridgeway and used to be at Black Gate when the net section went across the Blue Linns. Since 1996 the route goes further north to avoid excessive road walking and a wind farm that as constructed and check 1 is now on the roadside near a house called Llwyn-madoc. Normally people do not stop more than a minute to check in and grab a cold drink but it took me around 5 minutes to find a suitable hide by the nearby farm gate. It should not be necessary to have to open this.
Other caches on or close to the first section of the route are:-
GC3H88R
GC3H87X
GC3H870
GC3H45A
GC3H446
GC3H43B
GC3H41V
GC3H2TX
GC3H2RE
GC3H2EZ
GC4MMV8
A big THANK YOU to Slimak71 for replacing a very soggy log in December 2015.
And also to Lomakx for giving it some more TLC and a new log sheet in March 2019. Your help is much appreciated.