There and Back (Again)

(Globe and Mail TRAVEL,  Saturday November 11th 2017)   There and Back Again GLOBE & MAIL

Nursing both my throbbing feet and a pint of Thatcher’s cider, I eased back into my chair by the smouldering coal fire at the Wasdale Head Inn. Today was a failed attempt at the treacherous summit of Pillar. But a few weeks hence I’d be back home and likely facing the question again:

“Back to England? Again? …Why?”

 “ ‘Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are’ is true enough but I’d know you better if you told me what you re-read,” said the French writer, Francois Muriac.

Francois was onto something, and his theory applies just as tellingly to travel.

Are you a bucket-list location ticker? Or are you, like me, pulled back by some unseen gravitational force time and again to a particular place?

Some places just feel right, like going home. They’re a movie we want to see again, a dog-eared book that never gets old.

For me, it’s Britain, with its ancient culture, mellowed architecture and daily routines that are immediately familiar while still surprisingly novel. Tightening the focus further: the English countryside, Blake’s “green and pleasant land”. If pushed, the epicentre of my longing is the North, with its desolate moors, raw and ever-changing weather, wild coasts and brooding mountains.

Specifically, the Cumbrian mountains in the Lake District, an area which just this year has been awarded UNESCO World Heritage status, joining the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal and the Grand Canyon in winning one of the highest accolades on the planet.

In addition to the official attribute-speak that comes with such a designation, standard phrases like “natural beauty” and “stunning vistas”, I’d add a host of other things. What’s not to like about a place peppered with weathered villages folded into heathered crevices redolent of coal smoke and sheep dung?  The names are evocative of some other time: Yanwath, Temple Sowerby, Nether Wasdale, Crackenthorpe.

These mountains are a compact, scaled-back Alpine jewel box, chock full of hulking masses whose rugged truths are soon apparent when the actual climbing starts.  Seen through the smoked windows of a tour bus headed for touristy Keswick, they are a picturesque back-drop. Yet these are true mountains with all the inherent mystery and danger such terrain can bring and noble names to match: Blencathra, Skiddaw, Great Gable.

Wordsworth, Coleridge, Beatrix Potter – many writers called these hills home and the Romantic poets haunted these heights for inspiration. John Ruskin wrote of his love/hate relationship with the country he knew so well, “Blind, tormented, unwearied, marvelous England,” he said. And then, under the spell of Lake District beauty, he built his home, Brantwood, on the shores of Coniston Water.

Around 18 million people are likewise enchanted and visit the Lake District each year, spending close to 1.5 billion dollars and employing 18,000 people in the process. They come for a variety of reasons: a lungful of fresh air, a trip to the flowered tea rooms of Grasmere, a pilgrimage to Wordsworths’ grave perhaps.

For me it’s about many things: my grandmother’s ancestral home in Langwathby, the upland sheep-farming culture, the architecture of the villages that take rustic-chic to the next level.

And the Walking, capital ‘W’. In Cumbria, it’s a term that covers a whole dictionary of movement: including rambling, scrambling and climbing. Our first trip to Cumbria almost 30 years ago introduced us gently to this pursuit, a half-day hike as part of an old uncle’s car tour.  Subsequent return visits have helped us discover the nuance, refine our approach and extend our journeys, walking, as Hillarie Belloc said so eloquently “Across the great wave tops and rolls of the hills.”

This in itself is reason enough to re-visit a favourite place.

Recently I found myself yet again in a favourite part of The Lakes, the Wasdale Valley, often called the home of British Climbing. In Wasdale are England’s deepest lake (Wastwater) and highest mountain (Scafel), and arguably favourite view (from Great Gable). It’s an isolated place high in the dark, Western fells, a deep valley of scree slides and jagged cliffs, ancient sheepfolds and thick cloud. Difficult to get to, difficult to leave.

It’s a place of sheep farming and mountain climbing: little else matters. A night in its silent, dark embrace re-sets your expectations and your preconceptions of what really matters.

Could it be that some of us are pre-wired to eat porridge, climb fells, endure hurricane winds and end up by the fire at snug pubs at sunset? Life distills neatly into this simple pattern.

Along the narrow path between our B&B at Burnthwaite farm and the Wasdale Head Inn, sits tiny St.Olaf’s church, built, so they say, from Viking ship timbers. In its tiny churchyard enclosed by ancient stone walls and wind-twisted yews, the tilting grave markers tell a story of mountain climbing tragedy. This was a tiny detail I’d missed on previous visits. Re-visiting gave me the chance to delve deeper. Records of deaths on nearby fells, often of more than one climber at a time, are common, speaking both to the inherent dangers of the area and the love that people have had for these hills over the years.

Alfred Wainwright, king of the fell-walkers and guide book writer extraordinaire, once said: “The fleeting hour of life of those who love the hills is quickly spent, but the hills are eternal. Always there will be the lonely ridge, the dancing beck, the silent forest; always there will be the exhilaration of the summits. These are for the seeking, and those who seek and find while there is still time will be blessed both in mind and body.”

Edmund Hilary’s team used the ‘exhilarating summits’ to train for their Everest conquest, and the lobby of the Wasdale Head Inn is a makeshift museum of hob-nailed boots, climbing axes and frayed ropes. Faded photos show jaunty Victorians posing on impossible pinnacles like Napes Needle, tweeds and all. And later, eating in the inn’s pub with climbers from Holland and Australia, Billy, the wired-haired terrier who regularly goes ‘down the pub’ on his own, visits our table in search of a handout, unimpressed by whatever feat of endurance we’d performed that day.

We’d seen Billy before of course, on previous trips. But on this return visit, we were starting to feel as through we knew him, just as we were coming to know the hills. One visit would have never done it for us. Two even, would not have been nearly enough to start the process of unlocking the mysteries of Wasdale, of the Cumbrian Mountains’, of northern England, of Billy the wire-haired terrier.

For some, the travel experience is ten thousand miles wide and one inch deep, a shopping list accomplished, another day…another flag. I’d argue for a narrower focus and a deeper, more local experience.

Returning to a familiar spot is less about comfort-zones and familiarity than you might expect. In fact, taking your exploration to that next level, past that introductory tour-guide stage and really jumping into the deep end of intimate, vulnerable contact – that can be the risky sort of travel that is asks more of you – and ultimately gives more in return.

To paraphrase Muriac: “ ‘Tell me where you travel and I’ll tell you who you are’. That is true enough but I’d know you better if you told me where you return to time and time again,”.

And no matter how my aching feet might protest, I know I’ll be back in a remote pocket of England’s north again, squinting up at the so far evasive summit of Pillar, reading the clouds, getting to know a beloved place better and better with each visit.

IF YOU GO

When To Go: The Lake District is beautiful in its peak season which runs from late April to early September, and everyone knows it. So consider visiting outside this period if you can. Prices drop and the crowds thin in October, just as the best colours come out on the hills, and the trails are drier underfoot than in spring. The average temperature in October is 9C, making a pub fire at day’s end just that much more inviting. There are some quiet lakeside paths in this area, but for the most part, Wasdale is for people with good hiking boots, all-weather gear and good map-reading skills.

Sleep:   Burnthwaite B&B is a farmhouse bed & breakfast on a working National Trust farm at the foot of the best mountains run by Georgina & Andrew (and Billy the wire-haired terrier). Accommodations, in the 17th C. farmhouse, are simple and comfortable – geared to walkers and mountain climbers. The breakfasts are hearty and legendary.

B&B from £33 per person per night, £38 per person per night en-suite.

bookings@burnthwaitefarm.co.uk

Getting there:    A car is essential. There is a good selection of rentals at Manchester Airport ( we used www.Europcar.com) and then there is a 3 hr drive to Wasdale. The M6 motorway makes the first 1.5 hrs an easy drive, then the roads quickly get progressively narrower and twisting as you wind your way up the western coast of Cumbria and into the mountains.

Eat:     Burnthwaite farm is just a ten minute walk from the local pub food and drink served fireside at Ritson's Bar at the Wasdale Head Inn, the self-proclaimed “Birthplace of British climbing”. The bar, open all day year-round, is named after the first landlord, Will Ritson - huntsman, wrestler, farmer, fellsman, guide, raconteur, and the first "World's Biggest Liar". The Inn also rents rooms in its atmospheric old building at the foot of Kirk Fell. 

reception@wasdale.com

www.wasdale.com

For the original article, go to:

There and Back Again GLOBE & MAIL

Ireland’s remote Donegal is the coolest place to visit this summer

DONEGAL

(publ.  Globe and Mail Travel section, Tuesday march 28,2017 )

Driving the twisting ribbon of asphalt that is Donegal’s section of the Wild Atlantic Way coastal route, we had a “Cool Moment”, the first of many in this coolest corner of the coolest place on earth. The Irish language RTE radio was playing and another heart-stopping vista swung into view before us, all crashing waves, misted sea stacks  and foaming surf.  Amongst the Irish chatter, the phrase “Yodel Funk” popped out and, on cue, a funky Gaelic yodeler, backed by a manic tin whistle, gave us a soundtrack to a day of superlatives.

We were on a father-daughter road trip, starting in Belfast where Molly-Claire was living, looping north along the rugged shore of Northern Ireland and then into the wild west of Donegal, the place that National Geographic Traveller anointed number one on its “Coolest Places to Visit 2017” list.

But even before reaching Donegal, we’d compiled our own list of superlatives.  “Hotel Receptionist of the Year”, “Medium Sized Town of the Year” and the lovely “Loo of the Year” (really?) to name a few.  Before leaving Belfast, we’d taken in Titanic Belfast, voted “World’s Leading Tourist Attraction of the Year”.

Good as it was, you have to wonder: who exactly does this voting anyway? But there was no dispute in our mind about the National Geographic’s choice of Donegal as the coolest of the cool, once we got there.

The sun arrived as we did, glinting off the tempestuous Atlantic which is never far away. The roads narrowed, the traffic dried up and the sheep multiplied. The road signs were in Irish, this being the main Gaeltachct, (Irish speaking area) with almost 25%  of the Irish speakers in the country. A point called the Bloody Foreland or Cnoc Fola (the Hill of Blood) figures prominently on the map. This is country with a past.

Donegal has that faded glory feel to it, and the cottage we rented near Ardara was a good metaphor for the county itself. Abandoned and a near ruin, it was found  by architectural historian Dr.Greg Stevenson’s organization, Under The Thatch, which rescues traditional buildings at risk then rents them out to keep them alive and thriving. In his book “Traditional Cottages of County Donegal”, he cites the alarming fact that in 1950 there were 4000 traditional thatched cottages in Northern Ireland alone, but only 150 in 2005.

This cottage could have suffered a similar fate. But it survived and, thankfully, it was also too remote to be tarted up and ruined by amateur renovators. So when it was discovered by Greg, it was the real deal, only in want of a roof, some plumbing , a kitchen and tender loving care. It is minimalist chic in a 17^th century sort-of-way, and populated by a careful selection of folk art antiques. Unsurprisingly, it was named “Best Holiday Cottage in Ireland” by the Sunday Times. We were seeing a trend.

Greg had mentioned in his page of directions that it would be rude not to drop by for tea with  neighbour Mary Molloy, the cottage house-keeper. So, as we squeezed past the sheep and made our way to the cottage at the dead end of a road the width of a hiking path, we stopped in.

“ A lovely girl, you are, Molly-Claire!” she gushed, bear-hugging my middle child and  speaking in exclamation marks. “A credit to you, David! Oh what a sweet girl!” Mary and Molly-Claire hit it off like a house on fire, while her husband, the grandly named Columba, sat unmoved at the kitchen table with a wry expression,  unenthused about our intrusion into his world of big skies and lonely winds.

Mary advised us on how to make a turf fire: “Give it air! Give it time! Be patient and it will warm you nicely!”

Thankfully, Molly-Claire didn’t have my Canadian woodsman pride and actually listened to Mary’s advice. Soon, a night of heavy darkness, the smell of turf smoke and the sound of gentle rain lulled us into a deep sleep inside the thick stone walls, our table strewn with maps and books.

The morning took us back down the track, through the majestic Glengesh Pass and into a sea-side world of postcard beauty, the north Atlantic sunlight throwing a golden glow across a landscape little changed for eons.

Maghera beach was our first surprise. Cresting huge dunes of sea-grass, we found ourselves totally alone on a pristine white sand beach that stretched unbroken for a mile along gnarly rock cliffs riddled with caves. “Take care with the tides! Dear me, they can run in so fast! The caves, oh, frightening!”, Mary had warned. With one eye on the advancing surf, we ducked low and explored a deep cave, perhaps the very one that had hidden one hundred of Cromwell’s men many years ago. (They lit a fire and were soon discovered by their pursuers and duly slaughtered, save one who hid in a high crevice.)

Not many miles away as the crow flies, but a good hour as the winding road goes, we pulled into the tiny carpark at Slieve League, the highest sea cliffs in Europe. Rising right out of the crashing surf to a height greater than the CN tower, the cliffs with their colouring of amber, red and white deserve all the superlatives that can be hurled at them. The rolling waves arriving from Newfoundland exploded into mist at the bottom and the clifftops were shrouded in clouds, heightening the majestic mystery of the whole thing.

It is said that one-third of all Ireland can be seen from the cliff’s summit on a clear day. It is in those other southerly two-thirds that the biggest tourist contingents congregate, drinking green beer and loading up on shamrock tea towels. County Kerry is more famous and much busier, with conga lines of tour buses in summer. County Clare’s Cliffs of Moher are tiny compared to Slieve League, but much more famous. Dublin, of course,  is the go-to cultural bull’s eye. Even Northern Ireland, with its world-renowned Giant’s Causeway  (and more recently the World’s Best Tourist Attraction, Titanic Belfast), siphons the crowds off before they can reach lonely, remote Donegal.

And therein lies a big part of the county’s charm:  true European wilderness with a feeling of the undiscovered. For now.

A closer look shows that changes are coming to Donegal. Killybegs harbor is the centre of a booming and expanding fishing trade, the Aran sweater factory in Ardara  is gearing up for a record-breaking season, and the tea shops are starting to make excellent flat whites now. Scenes for Star Wars: Episode VIII, were filmed on the Inishowen Pennisula.  Brexit has brought a dark cloud of questions about a possible return to the hassle of border crossings between the Republic and Northern Island. The wider world is inserting itself into this wild paradise.

And yet Mary Molloy isn’t fazed by these changes, they seem a  world away from her pristine valley. My daughter, after surviving a teary Donegal goodbye, observed:  “ Mary  doesn’t realize how cool she really  is.”  Should be named “Coolest Cottage Housekeeper of The Year”?

She has to be. She lives in a tiny cottage in the coolest corner of the coolest place to visit in 2017. She can build a proper turf fire, and she has Yodel Funk on her Irish radio.

- March 2017



Read the original article on the newspaper's website at :

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/irelands-remote-donegal-is-the-coolest-place-to-visit-thissummer/article34433230/

Why I Prefer To Travel With A Sketchbook

My son Harry and I had weaseled our way into the cloistered beauty of Oxford’s Magdalen College on May Morning, a few hours after gathering with 20,000 other revelers to greet the sunrise with a hymn sung from the medieval tower, a tradition dating back 500 years. The college had sponsored a jolly day of artistic expression and laid out a banquet of tools for our use: oil pastels, Staedtler pencils, Winsor and Newton watercolour sets.

We sat on the striped lawn and sketched the arcaded front of the New Building (c.1733), adding to the plump sketch books we carried everywhere on this father and son tour of England. Increasingly, our pens and black books were our go-to recording devices, cameras staying more often in the backpacks.

A window on the second floor had once been C.S. Lewis’s room. I made a point of detailing the graceful Georgian sash. “You should flog your sketches to the college,” suggested one observer. But we didn’t: it wasn’t about that. It was about imprinting the day on our minds and hearts, capturing the moment with a physical act. Even now, five years later, I can flip open to those pages and smell the clematis that wound around the solid columns, hear laughter and the crack of a croquet ball on the lawn behind us, see the radius of the Palladian arches, feel the warmth of the May morning sun as it fluttered through the dappled leaves of Oxford. One look at the sketch and it all comes back to life.

Sketching allows all this. Drawing is to photography what walking is to driving: it’s more work, it’s slower, it demands patience and it’s something we’ve increasingly forgotten how to do. And yet, it pays dividends: The work is a rewarding pleasure, the pace allows a scene to sink in and be appreciated, concentration breeds a patient contemplative mind-set … and it’s something that can be relearned.

And it’s not all about great art, or skill. Drawing is something everyone can do. I don’t use an eraser or straight edge when I sketch: misplaced lines, side doodles, quirky shapes are all part of it.

A Princeton study in 2014 demonstrated the advantages of taking notes long-hand, versus typing them into a laptop: more self-editing and more emphasis on certain words rather than just a verbatim recording. With sketching, these same things seem to hold true, and there is more. To sketch a scene is to truly observe it. As Sherlock said to Dr.Watson: “You see but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.”

That, and the physicality of putting pen to paper. There is a visceral muscle-and-nerve connection to the scene in front of you when your mind observes a shape and tells your hand how to bring it to a blank page. There’s a pleasure in it that gives the intellectual imprint depth and substance. The wide net of digital point-and-shoot is fine for a quick pass, but it’s largely a glancing surface treatment and the real work is left to the camera. To sketch a scene challenges our notions of what really matters as we move through a new city or react to the beauty of a great, windswept plain.

It’s heartening to see that sketching is gaining the respect it deserves. At the Rijksmuseum, an important arts and history museum in the heart of Amsterdam, visitors are encouraged to put down their selfie-sticks and cameras and use a sketchbook when they visit the museum’s displays, making small drawings of sculptures and paintings rather than snapping a photo and moving along quickly. “In our busy lives we don’t always realize how beautiful something can be,” Wim Pijbes, the general director of the Rijksmuseum, told the art blog Colossal. “We forget how to look really closely. Drawing helps because you see more when you draw.” The story ran with photos from this experiment showing wide-eyed children gazing at display cases with determined intensity, pencils poised above sketchpads, fully engaged.

To our three kids, travelling with a sketchbook is not a new concept: in cafés, museums, parks, sitting on a bus or on the brink of a gorge. Not only do they seem to gain a bigger appreciation of beauty, they see detail and nuance, entering into the experience of the place. They’ve been able to be truly in the moment, rather than living in some strange parallel world of constant screen time.

If this sounds like a Luddite fantasy, then yes, that’s part of it: a yearning for a pared-down mode of travel, a rejection of the superficial and instant. Sketching is, by nature, an old-fashioned way of seeing. Kids seem to understand instinctively.

Recently, in Rome, I set myself a challenge: no cappuccino without at least a full page in the sketchbook. I haunted the streets of Trastevere and made a painfully slow progression through the ancient Forum, taking increasing pleasure in the small moments afforded by sketching little pieces of antiquity, Ducati motorcycles and crowded markets. On Via Merluna I sat at a red café table, the foamy cappuccino disappearing from my glass at the same pace that a sketch of the street scene appeared on my page. The scene was actually pretty banal; just another street. But as I sketched, it became so much more.

A little crowd, including my excited waiter, gathered around, judging my vision against what they saw and curious about my approach. They wouldn’t have stopped for a selfie-stick. I had enough Italian to know that they approved.

(Published in the Globe & Mail Newspaper Travel Section, Saturday May 21, 2016)

Walking The Wild Lands

Published in the GLOBE AND MAIL TRAVEL SECTION NOVEMBER 2.2013

Ominous storm clouds framing her jolly face, Mary Whistance offered us some pre-walk advice in her cheery Welsh lilt: “Tomorrow is the best day of the whole trail. Hergest Ridge is a right lovely walk. Steep though. And if a storm comes on, you’re in for it. A walker died up there last month, so he did. Poor lad, a boy and a half he was! Three days before they found him.” Her smile fizzled when she stole a furtive glance at the brooding sky.

 

 

It was the third day of our 136-kilometre walk north along the Offa's Dyke Path, which loosely follows the Welsh/English border.   While we ate our Welsh fry-up breakfast ("Job done tidy! You slaughtered those sausages , you did!") Mary's warning added fuel to the theory forming in my mind: Nothing on this long-distance path is as it first appears. This is a land of mist and magic.

 

The Offa’s Dyke Path is named after King Offa of Mercia who, in the 8th century, built the dyke as a sort of poor man’s Hadrian Wall to keep the marauding Welsh mountain men at bay. Zig-zagging from Chepstow in the south on the Bristol Channel, north to Prestatyn on the Irish Sea, it is sometimes a great bank up to almost eight metres high with a deep ditch to the westerly Welsh side. It is a fascinating raison d’être for a National Trail: a route that follows a engineered landscape rather than a geographic feature such as mountains or a coast line.

That does not mean the path, Llwydr Clawdd Offa in Welsh is an easy stroll through a bucolic British postcard. To be sure, it has its moments of breathtaking views across lush green valleys dotted with remote villages, hills rolling off into the distance. But once up close and personal, the green hills are two-hour uphill slogs littered with climbs over countless styles,//what do you mean by this?/// the path itself strewn with ankle-twisting rocks or mud the consistency of sticky-toffee pudding. It is wild country, this border land known as the Welsh marches, home to centuries of raids, skirmishes and midnight sheep-stealing. Fortunately, the wild is tempered by the homey pubs and friendly B&Bs spaced at walkable intervals.

My wife and I had chosen to do the southern portion of the path – considered by many to be the best half – from Chepstow to Knighton, a doable six-day walk. (Those wishing to do the whole 285 kilometres should allow at least 12 days with rest time added.)

Since it was mid-September, we’d prepared well for rain but soon learned that British weather reports are notoriously pessimistic and usually wrong. Every night we’d hear rumblings at the pub and earnest predictions on the BBC: tomorrow will be wet, windy and turning cold.

But our heavy rain pants and ponchos stayed in our packs and we went digging for sunblock instead.

As Mary had warned, it was just as well. Several sections of the path are well above 500 metres, and what can be an annoying breezy rain in town can be deadly on the heights of the lonely Black Mountain Moors.

We learned quickly that the path is a smorgasbord of variety. One moment, it traverses a cool, wooded ridge high above the Wye Valley. The next it drops down and passes the magnificent ruins of Tintern Abbey, founded by hardy Cistercian monks in 1131. A few miles later, it crosses a cast-iron bridge, built at the smokey heights of the Industrial Revolution, when the Welsh Hills were ravaged for coal and slate. Then it’s through a lonely windswept moor with distant views west to Brecon Beacons and east to the Malvern Hills, mountain sheep our only company.

Some days we’d never meet another soul for hours, leading to suspicions that the Offa’s Dyke is Britain’s best-kept long-distance hiking secret. But just as the changeable weather was never predictable, suddenly a bustling town would unfold in front of us.

Two hours after a knee-popping descent from the desolate heights of Hay Bluff in the Black Mountains, where on a clear day one is treated to a good view of magnificent Lord Hereford’s Knob, the path bisects the town of Hay-on-Wye. We made straight for the Granary Cafe for two bowls of organic Gooseberry crumble and coffee.

“Something really smells in here,” said Katy, tactfully surveying the room.

“Yea. Us.”

But sheep dung and mud is a ho-hum reality in Hay, famous for its 30 bookshops – including the Murder and Mayhem Bookshop, the Poetry Bookshop and the Sensible Bookshop – the popular Hay Festival and Richard Booth, the self-styled king of Hay, who lives in the castle surrounded by groaning shelves of ancient books and notices brashly proclaiming political independence from Britain. We’d scheduled a rest day here and it was worth it. For a couple of Canadian bibliophiles, Hay-on-Wye, the world’s first self-proclaimed “book town,” was bittersweet: So many books, but no way to carry them.

It was good we didn’t try, since the next day, our second last, was a gruelling 27 kilometres up and down over some of the most heart-stoppingly picturesque A.E. Housman countryside imaginable, liberally strafed with more than fifty stiles, a few questioning bulls, a fierce (but muzzled!) Rottweiler and hundreds of sheep.

 

The last night, tired but unbowed, we reached the comfy, isolated hill town of Knighton, the official end of the south half, start point for the wilder northern section and home to the Offa Dyke Centre with T-shirts, books and strange King Offa mannequins.

Staying with the Sharatts, who had a cozy sitting room well-stocked with maps and trail guides, was a fitting end to our trek. Not only did Pat tackle our long overdue laundry, but Geoff was a fount of helpful advice and knowledgeable comment.

“Too bad you’re ending it here,” he said in an enthusiastic lilt. “Because tomorrow’s stretch is the best part of the walk: most variety, best scenery … and toughest. Steep too. If the weather comes, you’re in for it.”

Now, where had we heard that before?

 

IF YOU GO

The Offa’s Dyke Path is rated “hard,” and is best suited to experienced hikers with proper gear. It can be walked in either direction, but is usually done south to north, so the sun and wind will be mostly at your back. The trail is generally well marked, with white acorn symbols indicating the route. But in many places, especially in rain and fog, it is easy to lose your way. Carry a good set of maps and a compass.

Getting there: Buses run daily to Chepstow, the southern start point, from London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports. nationalexpress.com Train service to Chepstow is also good, typically running through Newport. nationalrail.co.uk

When to go: The trail can be walked any time, but prime season is April to October. (In the off season, accommodations will be harder to find.) In spring, the days are longer and sometimes a bit wetter. The fall is a beautiful time to walk, but days are much shorter.

Where to stay: The Bear Inn is an atmospheric 16th-century coaching inn. Located in the middle of Hay-On-Wye, close to all the bookshops, restaurants and pubs. Inventive local cuisine and snug, well-decorated rooms make it a memorable stopover. Double rooms from £70 ($118) a night; thebearhay.com

Geoff and Pat Sharratt have been hosting walkers since 1999 in their spacious Victorian house, now known as Westwood**, a B&B in Knighton. They have lots of maps and guides and are well-versed on the trail and the weather. From £25 ($42) a person a night; 1-54-752-0317

For more information, visit the Offa’s Dyke Assocation atoffasdyke.demon.co.uk for planning tips, accommodation ideas and to order guides and maps.

 **PS: Geoff Sharratt wrote to tell me their  B&B is now closed. So sad. But he added that the story has been passed around Knighton, which is not so sad.

Britain's Best Kept Hiking Secret

Front page of the Saturday November 2 Globe and Mail Travel section...http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/destinations/walk-through-the-wild-lands-of-wales/article15214589/

Read it online here  and wait for me to post the whole thing,
(pictures and all) soon.

ILLUSTRATIONS & STORIES from architects

Over the Christmas holidays, I spent some late (but enjoyable) evenings illustrating several stories written by architects for the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) journal PERSPECTIVES....line art, pencil sketches, B&Wscratchboard.  I had some great chats with editor Gordon Grice about the state of hand-drawing in this age of 3D computer simulation. Our conclusion: drawing is alive but perhaps on life support. The upside is that architects and artists who CAN draw, are in possession of an increasingly valuable and rare skill. Keep that sketchbook handy. Draw, draw, draw. There is something about the hand/pencil-eye connection that makes drawing an engaging visceral exercise unlike virtual digital manipulation.

 The spring Perspectives issue has just been released in print and in digital format.  Have a look at :  http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/OAAQ0112/index.php?startid=10#/10