August 02, Llnaymynech to Nescliffe

 The route from Llnymynech to Ellesmere is flat until mile 14+,  just when you need a hill!  The elevation looks like this:

So really, the climb was fairly modest, but the descent was OY as in easy does it!  I went through more gates and over more gates climbed over more stiles today than on my walks for the past three years put together.  Also, there were diversions, not way-marked, which I hate because I worry that there will be no exit from the new path, but it all worked out.

A blank slate.  I hope the message was not critical:

I had to go through that field.  Did not see the bull, but I did wonder—as I have many times— what, exactly, Beware Of The Bull means.  You are being warned that there may be a bull so what do you do?  Talk nice to him?   Offer him a cheese sandwich?  Lie down and play dead?  Run like the dickens?

At one of the unmarked diversions, as I was looking around,  a man came out of a barn.  "Am I trespassing?"  "No.  Just go around the green barn and yadayadayada,,,,," Well, don't you know he let his very yappy dogs out so that if I went around the green barn, they would harass me (or worse).  

Small dogs bite, too!

I ended up scaling a gate:

There were some pretty sights:

But mostly everything was green, which is also a pretty sight:

Is that the hill I am going to have to climb?

No.

There were a few splashes of colour, such as this patch of flowers:

And this tree laden with berries:

Roger that!

There was supposed to be a path along the edge of the corn field, but apparently Farmer Jones wanted that extra row of corn, so for 1/2 a mile I had to bushwhack through the field.  Poles come in handy for pushing the leaves aside, but you could scratch a cornea marching through that growth:

I did not sense this bovine coming up behind me.  She really wanted to make friends:

And looked ever so dejected when when knew she was fated to stay in that field and could not come along:

A laundry list of potential dangers:

One and four could go together. (Also, one and three?)

This is a famous cave that I did not read up on, but the rocks are mighty impressive and quite beautiful:

Finally at the road and ready to take the bus to Shrewsbury. a lol (little old lady...like me, I guess, but not like me) was getting out of a car, so I went over to her and asked:  "Excuse me, do you know which side of the road you stand on to get the bus to Shrewsbury?"  She pointed to the other side of the road.  And guess what?  She was going to Shrewsbury too.  After we crossed the road, I observed, "There is no BUS STOP sign here."  "Yes, there is.  It is behind those bushes down there."  And there was no BUS STOP painted on the road.  But this lady was a local, so she knew. We only had to wait about 10 minutes, which is mighty fine when the bus comes only once an hour.  As we were chitchatting, I mentioned that I was stopping in Wolverhampton on the way to London.  "Oh, don't go there.  It is a terrible place.  You really don't want to be there if you can avoid it."  I looked it up and it is a terrible place!  So when I checked back in to Darwin's Town House for my second stint here, I asked the woman in the office what she might suggest.  She suggested Oxford, a good suggestion, but I have been to Oxford;  she mentioned Birmingham, so I cancelled the hotel in Wolverhampton—no refund! and that was a hunk of change—booked a hotel in Birmingham, and I already have a list of things to do....more than will fit into two days.  

I have been using Chat GPT for travel information, suggestions, and advice. It is ever so helpful!  And fun!