Report & Results of the 2023 event
The 2023 version of Offa’s Twisted Wye Kanter was the 5th time the event had been organised by South Wales LDWA Group and the second consecutive year that the event had been linked to the Chepstow Walkers Are Welcome walking festival. Each year sees different routes created and this year saw the route head as far north as Bigsweir Bridge (on the 24-mile route) and all routes visiting Tintern and returning via Chepstow Park Wood. The event proved popular with a total of 138 people opting to walk one of the four distances offered. We had some ‘no-shows’ and consequently 114 people set off from the Palmer Community Centre on an overcast and cool day. The entrants returned happy and professed to having had a great day solving clues whilst enjoying the Wye Valley in early spring. The jacket potatoes and various toppings proved popular as did the variety of home-made cakes. Thanks to Norma Lloyd and Ang Williams in particular for overseeing the catering side of things and to all volunteers who baked cakes.
The event also saw the first ever wheelchair accessible route created and this innovative idea was reported as a tremendous success by those who used the route. The walking festival is likely to ensure that a wheelchair accessible walk is created for the 2024 walking festival.
The volunteers who made the day so successful and to whom I am eternally grateful for their selflessness and dedication to the event were:
Andrew Clabon, Gwyneth Littlejohn, Ang Williams, Norma Lloyd, Tony Alcock, Simon Pickering, Dave Wheeler, Enrique Santafe, Ferne Davies and Rod Hollands.
Some statistics from the day!
We had an attendance rate of 80% and completion rates of 97% (24m), 100% (19m) 88%, (16m); 96% (13m), 100% (7) which meant an overall completion rate of 96% overall.
One grumble from the organisers, There was a time gap of an hour between the last but one group arriving at the finish and the last group. This last group finished at 7:29pm, when the entry details categorically state all to finish by 7pm. We only knew the whereabouts of this last group when we phoned them at 6:50pm. The 11 members of the organising group were left waiting around when they had been on duty since 6:30am. Most of which had also done a shift the night before in setting up the hall. Could entrants please consider the impact on volunteers of a late finish and be prepared to contact us for a lift back to the finish rather than arrive late and delay us all?
The kanter will not feature in 2024 due to the fact that the South Wales LDWA Group is committed to organising a 50 mile event in April 2024, but rest assured, the event will return for 2025!
David Morgan
Event Organiser
Results
The results can be viewed as a PDF document or online at LDWA Full Results – Offa’s Twisted Wye Kanter 5
Additional statistics are available here
Feedback from some of the entrants
I just wanted to say a very big thank you from me, Penny and Charlotte to all the amazing organisers and volunteers for a wonderful day of walking today for the Offa’s Twisted Wye Kanter. We loved it!
The organisation, the welcome, the route and the food were all exemplary. Thank you for all the hard work and kindness shown. We had such a great day!
Another well organised and run LDWA event
Thank you so much for another fantastic walk. I thoroughly enjoyed today – many thanks for planning such a lovely walk and the questions were good fun to complete.
I know I have said it before, but you are such an incredibly friendly bunch and were so kind when I had finished – giving me (and my husband who had not walked but had been cycling) a cake as we needed to get off, printing my certificate and having a brief chat.
Particular thanks to the maker of the absolutely amazing custard slice – I had to wrestle that from my husband as he took a shine to it too.
I even got to see, in the distance, a Winter Spine legend whose dot, along with so many others, I watched a few months ago.
I think Pete, who I walked with, is a member of your group. A special mention to him for his good company and impeccable manners in not correcting me as I called him Robert for the first 6 miles!
Thank you for all the hard work that went into this and I am really looking forward to doing some future SWLDWA events.