Thursday 24 April 2025 - A Bike Ride to Pennington Flash and the Sankey Valley

On a lovely summer's day it was a delight to enjoy this gentle 70km bike ride.

Sue and I set off at 9am from Timperley Bridge and soon observed a Mallard with a rather large recently hatched family.

There's lots of waterweed in the Bridgewater Canal in the Stretford area. Sue identified it as Cape Pondweed, an exotic introduction from South Africa.

There's also lots of Cuckoo Flower on the verges of the canal, as well as Wild Garlic, Forget-me-nots, Bluebells and huge expanses of Dandelions.

Cuckoo Flower

The towpath takes us past the Trafford Centre, where a big expanse of land has recently been cleared. I wonder what is going on there?

Anyway, the canal makes its way through picturesque Worsley, soon passing RHS Bridgewater gardens and continuing its tranquil way in pleasant countryside past Astley and Leigh.

A short way beyond Leigh, we dived off to the left (the steep descent feels a bit like a dive) and joined a friendly couple with whom we enjoyed a good chat over our coffee and cake. (Slow service, excellent cake.) Nigel and Diane retired about ten years ago and have spent much of that time exploring the waterways (canals) of Britain. They have recorded their exploits on Facebook, under the title 'Narrowboat Escapology' which is well worth a browse. The wildlife pictures are excellent.

It was a delight to bump into you, Nigel and Diane, and enjoy a leisurely break with no time pressures.

As Sue's time on a bicycle is restricted by a recurring neck problem, she turned round here and pedalled home along the towpath. A ride of over 50km, so not to be sniffed at, and quite speedy compared with my gentle pace, so she was back for lunch at 1pm.

Meanwhile, I took to the earth paths around the Flash, then minor roads through Golborne and Newton-le-Willows to reach the Sankey Valley at Mucky Mountains Nature Reserve.

This is a lovely spot. The Mallards were out in force with their partners and their youngsters.

After a delightful 8km or so heading south through the linear nature park in the Sankey Valley, the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT) is reached and the path travels through a 'Memorial Forest', where I lunched on a bench 'In Memory of John McCloskey, 1951 - 2014'.

I soon joined the familiar TPT route beside the Ship Canal that we join when doing the 'Moore Lane' circuit towards Runcorn.

The once muddy paths through Warrington have been sanitised, though there's no mud anywhere in our current dry spell of weather.

I know I'm near home when I exit Warrington and encounter the River Bollin.

The TPT takes to the road for a short way at the site of the Bay Malton pub, so it's more enjoyable to take a cut through about 300 metres earlier, beside a wood, that links with the furthest point to which the Bridgewater Way towpath has been resurfaced. Here's my bike on the link path I've just joined, with the canal towpath being the other side of the hedge in the middle distance.

The towpath leads in about 4km to our house in Timperley.

On this occasion the 70km circuit took me about 6 hours at a gentle pace, including a long stop at Pennington Flash and two shorter ones on the TPT. 

Here's the route:

Back home to sit in the sunshine at 3pm. What a lovely outing.