My Right Knee – Part Two
In an effort to calm the anxiety that results from only ever driving north and west but knowing that today’s destination is south and east, I decide to leave home a bit earlier than Google Maps tells me to. It turns out the M4 is devoid of traffic and the usually clogged Brynglas tunnels empty of cars and lorries. I get to Monmouth nearly two hours ahead of schedule. But that’s ok because there’s a service station outside town with a mini Asda that is better stocked than my local superstore, nice clean toilets and a nice lounge where I can relax. After a cup of tea, a croissant and a visit to the loo, I get back in the car and connect the Sat Nav for the last two miles of the journey.
Me: NP25
Sat Nav: Monmouth
Me: NP25 4LG
Sat Nav: Ribblesworth Avenue, Barnsley, Yorkshire.
I disconnect, reconnect and retry three times before I check my watch and decide I have to navigate to the event the old fashioned way. It’s now 9am and walkers on my route are to set off between 9.15am and 9.30am but before then there’s registration. This should be a straightforward give your name and get your number process but sometimes – people in front of you asking stupid questions, some fools recalling how everyone missed the 4th checkpoint at the river crossing on last year’s Bumpy Bimble walk or when there’s a dreaded kit check – it can take ages. I look at a map: I need to drive up the road for two miles, turn right at the traffic lights, turn right at the mini roundabout and the event field will be on the right. Estimated time of arrival: 9.15am.
9.02am I leave the service station and drive up the road for two miles to the traffic lights. There’s a sign saying “No Right Turn”.
9.06am Half a mile ahead is a roundabout so I turn, come back and take a left at the traffic lights. I’m in position to go right at the mini roundabout but there’s a big metal sign across the carriageway saying “Road Ahead Closed. No Through Traffic.”
9.10am I decide to ignore the sign on the basis that I’m not through traffic because I’m going to a field. A kilometre ahead, it turns out that I’m right. There are about 20 other cars and a 50 seater luxury coach but no people other than the two ladies in charge at the registration tent.
9.14am I give my name, get my numbered wristband and set off with no fuss at all. Amazing.
10am The first couple of kilometres from Wyesham to Redbrook has been easy going so my right knee hasn’t bothered to wake up yet. I walk up a long slope of shallow concrete steps towards Offa’s Dyke and find a checkpoint at the top. The volunteers are only just setting up and haven’t opened the packs of Jammy Dodgers yet. My pedometer tells me that so far I’ve only used 65 calories. I know for a fact that Jammy Dodgers are double that and as you never leave a checkpoint with less than four biscuits maybe it’s just as well that the packets are still sealed.
10.45am My route instructions tell me to leave Offa’s Dyke and follow a deeply rutted path for half a mile until I reach a tarmac lane. My pedometer uses kilometres and after one there’s no sign of tarmac. At two, I’m wondering if I took the wrong turning but at three I hear a tractor. Tractors usually mean farms and farms usually mean tarmac lanes. At the top of the hill the track turns into tarmac. To the right there’s a farm but my route goes left towards some stone cottages.
11.15am The weather is glorious, the scenery is spectacular and so far my right knee is behaving as a normal right knee should. The route instructions tell me to follow the dirt track ahead and take care as it becomes steep and rocky. Well, that’s a description that was written with rose tinted glasses. The path is actually a dry stream bed filled with large stones which are obviously dislodged every time there’s a deluge. It becomes an anxiety filled, bone-crunching descent and I’m relieved to eventually climb away on to grassy ride between wood and fields. My right knee has woken up and is asking what’s going on so I sit on a bench that has one of the best memorial plaques I’ve ever read. I hope that Scarlett realises Jack is a keeper.
11.55am I give my number in at the checkpoint in the Cadora Woods car park and get a tick alongside my name. The volunteers have eaten all the Jammy Dodgers and the best they can offer is words of encouragement. I’m disappointed because my pedometer says I have used up 583 calories which equals four and a bit biscuits.
12.05pm I cross Bigsweir Bridge and am now on the Wye Valley Walk which is flat and well signposted. I tell my right knee that climbing is over and it replies that in the absence of biscuits, if I eat a Mars bar and a packet of crisps, it’s good for another few miles.
1pm I cross the river again at Redbrook Railway Bridge and walk through lush fields. I think I should finish at about 1.20pm but missing an overgrown path causes me an unplanned detour. I finally get back four and a half hours after starting. I tell the ladies in the tent, the organisers and anyone else who will listen that it was a great event and I’ll see them again next year.
Epilogue
It’s been a couple of weeks and I’m walking down the garden path. My foot catches on something; I realise I’m falling and the concrete is approaching much too fast. This is going to hurt. And it does. And guess which bit of me hits the ground first.
