The Hatterrall Ridge
You might already know this is where you’ll find the highest point on the Offa’s Dyke Path, 2308 feet up on the summit of the Black Mountain, but the finest thing about this ridge is how long it keeps you high. Walk the 17½-mile section between Pandy and Hay-on-Wye and you’ll be above the 600m contour line for nigh on six miles, the 500m one for another two, and 400m for at least two more. It’s a plump ridge – wide enough in places to obscure the valleys on either side and make it feel like you’re riding the sky on a vast magic carpet of tussocky grass. You won’t see any evidence of Offa’s Dyke up here, but you will be tracing today’s Anglo-Welsh border, and the boundary of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Many trekkers break this long leg by dropping into the Vale of Ewyas to overnight at Llanthony Priory Hotel, with its seven guest rooms and bar in the vaulted under croft. And you may want some hours to browse the shelves of Hay. Richard Booth started its transformation to a booktown (also declaring Hay an independent kingdom with him as king, his horse as prime minister) and the squishy sofas of Booth’s Bookshop are irresistible to tired legs. ▶