Day 11 - Buttington to Llanymynech

Beer drunk: 2 pints

Distance walked: 18km, Time taken: 5 hours

Ascents: 145m, Descents: 99m

Today was an easy day, terrain wise. It is considered to be a boring day as it is all along river banks and canal tow paths, as well as being quite short. Both myself, and my feet, appreciated it. I know I harp on about the state of my feet, but it does tend to be at the top of your mind. Fortunately today the soles of my feet had settled down and I could walk without discomfort - from that point at least. I had bought some super special blister "plasters" on the recommendation of other walkers as my right heel was getting a tender spot. When I took off my socks yesterday, the plaster came off too, along with the skin over the blister it had failed to prevent. Ouch!!! I just stuck a regular band-aid on it today and we were all much happier.

I quite enjoyed the different type of countryside I saw today, although it would get boring if walk was like this every day. One great feature of this particular walk is how varied the terrain is. It ranges from windswept moors (although a Scot would scoff at the description probably), to rolling farmland hills, to forests carpeted with bluebells and how riverbanks. Next on the agenda are more Iron Age hill forts.

I've seen lots of cows and sheep so far.  Including these weird looking sheep which are a fairly uncommon Welsh breed (Kerry Hill).  

I've also seen lots of rabbits (the small, brown wild ones) and squirrels but today I also got to see ducks with ducklings in tow, swans and what I think are grebes (I've since been told they were moorhens).  Part of today's walk was along a canal towpath, which isn't operating any more. Most of the lock keepers cottages have been turned into private houses. One such house had a pair of swans nesting in their back garden!

What was not so nice about today were the cows - again. Many of the fields along the river bank were full of them. Most of them were placid but one herd was not. I tried to do a big loop around them but they got curious and started to charge to where I was headed. They might not have much acceleration but they sure do build up a lot of momentum. I stopped and waited until they were down by the river bank and headed back up to the path and aimed for the next gate. I got within 30 metres of it when the herd took into their heads to charge towards me again. There was an electricity pole in the field so I ducked behind it and they went around me and stopped in front of the gate! I decided to wait. Either they would get bored as there was no grass in the churned up mud by the gate or someone else would come by. After about 5 minutes a couple came from the other direction. They just clapped their hands and made shooing noises at the cows who meekly moved out of the way, leaving me feeling like a right pratt cowering behind a pole, scared of these docile creatures. Hah! The truth is cows are much smarter than you'd think and are right, evil bastards. 

I've decided I'm going to give up eating lamb. They are cute and always run away from me when I approach them in a field. In the future I'm only going to eat beef.

Edited to add details on today's beer: I got to Llanymynech too early to check into my B&B so I stopped at the Dolphin Inn for a pint of Three Tuns XXX from a local Shropshire brewery. It was harmless. With my dinner at my B&B (which was actually a pub) they offered a tasty paddle of all three of their cask ales so I had that. One called Lowry (but I forgot to note down the brewery), another called Revive by Six Bells (in Shropshire) and the third was Black Sheep from the Black Sheep brewery in Yorkshire. I felt obliged to try them all but like the Yorkshire ale the best. The others were a bit light and hoppy for me.