A SUNNY Friday morning sponsored walk on Lymore footpaths kicked off Montgomery Walking Festival 2018, with 103 Montgomery school-children setting out to explore the countryside around the town.

Headteacher Anna Griggs said: “It was such a fantastic morning and our older children did a brilliant job looking after our younger children. We even visited a field full of turnips – a great link link to our ‘eat well week’ and the Foundation Phase preparing to perform ‘The Enormous Turnip’ for our Harvest service.”

The afternoon became considerably damper but saw 17 walkers, undeterred, taking part in the early evening walk under the Ffridd, ending up at The Cottage where a great atmosphere was created with German beers and Oktoberfest food adding to the usual Monty's fare and with the All Fired Up band getting some serious audience participation.

Despite dire predictions, the rain had disappeared by 7am on Saturday morning well in time to wave off the intrepid walkers undertaking the 24 mile Challenge Walk.

They were followed a couple of hours later by a much larger group taking the service bus to Churchstoke and experiencing the lovely ‘Mini Alps’ walk back to Montgomery.

Well over 100 walkers took part in seven walks of varying distances across the weekend, and all were rewarded with fine weather, good company and fabulous far-reaching views. Several of the walks were only possible because of the valuable work of the Vale of Montgomery Footpath Volunteers with Powys Countryside Services on the local Rights of Way network.

Saturday evening saw the Festival Supper, which was in part a thank you to the dedicated and knowledgeable band of walk leaders who put so much effort into making the Festival an enjoyable and rewarding experience for all. The diners were well fed and watered, and well entertained too, by the home-grown talent of Monty Folk and Côr Trefaldwyn, whom diners assisted with ‘Ar Hyd y Nos’ and ‘Calon Lân’ as if to the Welsh manner born!

Alun and Val from Bradford won the accolade of attending the maximum number of festival walks and events possible and said: “We really enjoyed the weekend. The events and organisation were so good and the walks and the leaders made for some great experiences. You even got the weather sorted.

"We take our hats off to you – job well done. Hopefully we'll be allowed back next year!”

John from Cheltenham, joining the festival for a second year and tackling the Cefn y Coed and Montgomery Hills walk, added: “Thank you for the excellent walk. A great group of knowledgeable walk leaders, a good route with fabulous views, good weather and lovely bara brith. What more could we want?”

Montgomery resident, Sheelin, was the first to book a place on a walk back in May, opting for the Sunday Family Wildlife Walk. She enthused about walking through Dolforwyn Woods with Dan Hodgkiss from the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust as one of the leaders, saying: “Dan was so knowledgeable and engaging; it was such a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.”

n Walkers are Welcome Montgomery already have four new routes in planning for 2019. All the festival walks were fully booked this year so don't miss out – booking opens on May 1 at www.MontgomeryWalkingFestival.co.uk. See you there!