Thursday 29 December 2022 - Cicerone Lancashire Walk 19: Silverdale and Warton Crag

Click on any image for a slideshow

Our final outing of 2022 was to Silverdale, where we found a few new paths thanks to following Mark Sutcliffe's walk number 19, after which we visited first Rona, then Conrad, in Arnside.

After a coffee in the Leighton Moss bird reserve centre, Sue and I wandered over to the Causeway, where areas of reeds seem to have been cut back, perhaps in an attempt to expose the bearded tits to visitors. We saw a busy tree creeper, and later nuthatches foraging on tree trunks.

After leaving the Causeway, and its watery views across Leighton Moss, we continued up to the entrance of Leighton Hall, closed for the winter.

You can see the grassy path as it rises up the hill away from the Hall to a bench, from where there are good views back to the hall and beyond.

We normally go straight on here, but Mark guided us to the right, to a quiet lane along which we walked for a good kilometre. A right turn then took us steeply up to a leaf strewn, moss bordered path below Warton Crag. I don't think I'd been here before.

We strayed a little from Mark's route, but all paths led to the summit.

On a better day there would have been pictures of the view from the 163 metre summit of the crag, but today they would be just a mismash of greys. So the camera didn't come out again until we had descended pleasantly to Crag Foot and strolled a few metres along the main road to join the Lancashire Coastal Way as it headed under a waterlogged railway bridge and crossed the salt marsh.

The path, slithery at times, leads to Jenny Brown's Point, and a variety of views across the estuary towards the nuclear power station at Heysham.

 

The iconic chimney at Jenny Brown's Point is believed to have belonged to a short-lived copper smelting plant.

A couple of benches at Jack Scout are suitably placed for a lunch stop, if a bit exposed to the wind on a day like today.

Wolf House Gallery: the source of many of the pictures strewn around our home. We didn't call in today. Since a previous family of owners sold the gallery a good few years ago now, the produce for sale has become less to our taste.

Just up the road, there's a path to Woodwell. We took the low level route.

Woodwell used to be the source of Silverdale's water supply.

From the spring, and the clearing next to it, we took the cliff route (yes, a cliff was climbed) to Silverdale Green via the Chase. 

Here, Sue had a few of her rapidly becoming renowned 'Fungi Moments'.

Dead Man's Fingers (Xylaria polymorpha)

Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor)

Jelly Ear (Auricularia auricula-judae)

King Alfred's Cakes (Daldinia concentrica)

Purple Jelly Disc (Ascocoryne sarcoides)

Birch Polypore (Fomitopsis betulina)

Witch's Butter (Tremella mesenterica)

Once through the Green, we headed along the path to Burton Well.

A very 'green' affair...

Then across the rather boggy Lambert's meadow, finishing the walk by crossing Silverdale's golf course, home to some impressively skeletal trees, and heading past the railway station to the bird reserve centre.

A most pleasant route of around 13km, with 300 metres ascent, taking around 3 hours, after which we visited both Rona and Conrad, both of whom are also happy to get rid of 2022..

Click on the image for a clearer view - the faint blue line is Mark's .gpx route, 

the dark blue one is our route

So, with this posting being made on 1 January 2023, apart from a NYE parkrun, that's it for 2022. Some would say "good riddance", but we did have a wonderful weekly dose of Isabella, some lovely trips to Porthmadoc, and quite a few more highlights, so it wasn't all bad.