Day 24: We Just Can’t Stop

5.5 miles. We are lost on a steeplechase course and Shari climbs a dung heap to ascertain our location. We are really done walking now – 297.1 miles!

Okay, we said yesterday that we were done walking. But by mid-morning we’d long since exhausted all that Holyhead has to offer – a huge breakwater and a Roman fortlet (yes, a little fort) – and decided to go out for a stroll to a Neolithic-age standing stone and burial chamber.

The weather was so nice we thought we’d just continue walking a bit on a section of the Coastal Path that we hadn’t yet covered. That went well enough – it was only a couple of miles – and then the last half-mile or so we retraced the beginning of yesterday’s route. Except… Somehow we got turned around where a footpath meets a roadway. That wasn’t even a problem, as we were turned around in the driveway of the woman who owns the hostel where we’re staying. Nice lady, she told us about a shortcut! Except… Clearly we didn’t find it, as we found ourselves wandering about a cowpie-spattered steeplechase course, with no hostel in sight. We thought we were done with shit, but apparently not. The highest vantage point from which to ascertain our location was a dung heap, which Shari not so gleefully climbed forthwith. As King of Shit Hill, a position she has long coveted, she was able to see in which direction we should go. From there we wound our way through the rest of the steeplechase course, cowpies and all, and a static caravan park (that’s a Welsh thing), past a vacant pub and finally to our lodging. The owner asked us upon our return if we’d made it okay, and snickered when we said yes, leading me to suspect she saw Shari scouting from atop Shit Hill. It seemed a fitting end to an island tour full of circles and entrapments, and a walk punctuated by fields of sheep and cow shit!

This marks the end of our foot travels across Wales. We catch a train to London tomorrow morning, where we’ll spend 2.5 days before heading home.