Friday 9 May 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 4 - Bramhall to Middlewood

With the rest of our 'GM Ringway' team having other commitments, it was just me, Sue and Rick who assembled at Manchester Piccadilly for the 9:46 train to Bramhall, on a lovely sunny morning.

Once in Bramhall, soon after 10am, we succumbed to the charms of Valentino Café before returning past the War Memorial (above - topical in that we are currently noting the passage of 80 years since VE Day, and I've also been reading 'The Dictionary of Lost Words' by Pip Williams) to the start of the day's route along Benja Fold and past some once idyllic thatched cottages.

We then followed the woodland path along the Carrwood Brook valley, all the way to Bramhall Park, which we also passed through on Stage 3 of the walk.

Looking down from beside the hall, to the path we used on Stage 3

The route that we mistakenly took on Stage 3 was then followed into Happy Valley and beyond.

Sue succeeds with a team selfie

We followed the signed route, confident now that we would soon emerge from the path that we took on our version of Stage 3.

After a lengthy chat with a dog walker who sees many folk doing the 'GM' trail (and there were others doing it today), we found ourselves on dry field paths heading towards a busy road.

After a short time on the busy road, we took a good path that led to the newish A555 Airport Eastern Link Road. Thankfully our path went under the motorway type road and after a while reached another busy road - London Road North.

Immediately across this road was the sanctuary of Poynton Pool, where I'd been with SWOG a couple of days earlier.

We'd hoped for a lunch bench, but that had been taken by a couple of chaps who we'd seen on the train and who were doing the same walk as us. It turned out that they are 'Trail Guardians' for one of the stages further around this anti-clockwise route around Manchester.

Whereas the SWOG members local to Poynton had said nothing on Wednesday about the Pool's terrapins, a local couple pointed them out to us. There were four at this spot, and more further along the bankside. They were sunbathing in the hot weather. They are thought to be descendants of escaped pets, and have lived here for many years.

The idyllic place is home to some very large fish (a large shark-like monster was touring the lake!) and a variety of birds including several families of coots, great-crested grebes, tufted ducks, the ubiquitous mallards and moorhens, and a family of swans. Nice looking yellow irises, as well.

The shady path was a delight. It was disturbing to hear that the local council has plans to remove many of the trees and upgrade this perfectly adequate path.

We did eventually find a perfect lunch bench, after which we continued around the pond to reach a fine signpost at the junction with the Prince's Incline. It's hard to imagine this place once being a highly industrial mining area. The incline was built for carts to transport coal from the mines to the canals and other means of transport for its onward journey.

Looking down the incline towards Poynton

Continuing towards the Ladybrook Valley, we passed fields dense with buttercups, and copses laden with white blossom.

We unfortunately missed the off-route delights of Norbury Hollow. Perhaps we should investigate those when we do Stage 5 on June 11.

On arrival at Middlewood Station we discovered that there was no earlier train than our planned 15:18 back to Piccadilly. It was just after 2pm; we had completed stage 4 in about four hours, including stops. So we strolled along the Middlewood Way for less than a kilometre to reach the main A6 road, where we were lucky to find a bus stop, and two minutes later a bus to Stockport and a short wait for a train to Navigation Road and a walk home to Timperley. The Stockport station coffee etc was far inferior to the earlier delights of Valentino Café in Bramhall.

Leaving the Middlewood Way

Including the last bit along the Middlewood Way, we walked about 14km, with about 150 metres ascent. Here's the route. It was truly delightful and comes highly recommended.

I then needed antibiotics for a cat scratch. I was not looking forward to a wrestling match with the NHS, but after a call to 111, then a consultation by phone with a doctor, antibiotics were prescribed and I picked them up from our chemist about 45 minutes after the initial call. My fears were unfounded.

Diary - 7 to 10 May 2025

Millie the Minx. I've spent some of the week from 7 May keeping her provisions topped up while her owners have enjoyed a week's holiday.

This involves cycling or driving to Didsbury. Mostly I've been driving past for one reason or another, but on 8 May I cycled. An indirect 14 km route from Timperley avoids all but a few hundred metres of roads.

From Didsbury there are lots of walks into Fletcher Moss and other spots in the Mersey Valley. The variety of green foliage is rapidly approaching uniformity.

"I want my food?"

She doesn't really. She just wants to sit on my lap. At one point she decided to jump off in a hurry, puncturing the back of my hand. The hand swelled up so a call to NHS 111 was needed. I'd got antibiotics within an hour, and the swelling has now gone down a bit.

Meanwhile, time was spent in the 'office' sorting out plans for the 'GM Ringway Trail' project, with dates set for the remaining 16 stage over the rest of 2025. See here.

I reported recently on the vast amount of debris on the weir at Northenden. Work was still ongoing this week, but the debris has now been removed. There's a lot more work needed to sort out the flood defences though. (Not really urgent giving the current drought!)

May 9 was the day for GM Ringway Stage 4. A lovely walk - see next diary entry.

Today, May 10, I braved the attendance of Millie, who as usual insisted on sitting on me. Luckily no more scratches, despite my wearing shorts.

The shorts were needed for Wythenshawe parkrun #618. There were 458 finishers, a good turnout. Full results here. I took a few pictures at or near the start before jogging round with Beth, who was telling me about her 84 year old father's current Offa's Dyke walk. There's hope for us all... I was in position 313, out of the 458 finishers.

Meanwhile Sue was running fast in Birmingham (24:26 for 5km), and the TGO Challenge backpacking event across Scotland has started. We will see folk at the finish in Montrose in a couple of weeks. Good luck to everyone taking part, especially those whose routes I have vetted. I'm not aware of any easy way of following participants' progress these days other than dipping into the random entries in between advertisements on Facebook. Which I find exceptionally tedious...

Wednesday 7 May 2025 - SWOG around Poynton

The first SWOG (Stockport Walking and Outdoors Group) evening walk of the year took place from the Waitrose car park in Poynton. A challenging route plan from Phil Wharmby was sanitised by some of the local resident members to a pleasant hour and a half's gentle stroll of about7km for the twelve folk who attended.

It was still light enough for a few snaps to illustrate the flavour of the terrain.

After plodding around some familiar paths, we reached Poynton Pool. Nobody mentioned terrapins. Apparently there's a plan from Cheshire East Council to fell a load of trees and further sanitise the already 'suitable for wheelchairs' path to the west of the pool. How stupid!

Here's the 7km route. Very pleasant for a bit of evening exercise.

Wednesday 7 May 2025 - De Quincey Park, and Didsbury

 

It's looking very green by De Quincey Park just now.

I'm on Millie duty for a few days, so visits to Didsbury are needed. It's very green there, as well.

Sunday 4 May 2025 - The Mike Dunne Memorial 10km Run

We were at the athletics track at Wythenshawe Park by soon after 8:30 this morning, for the 10km run in memory of Mike Dunne, a legendary Sale Harrier runner who sadly died of cancer in 2023.

This gave me a great excuse to take it very easy on yesterday's parkrun, on which (pictured below) I spent some time around and behind Owen and Graham, before going ahead to finish the 5km in 37:53. I was in position 423 out of 473 participants. Sue was much quicker. Full results are here.

Community Run organiser, Paul, and his team, have put a great deal of effort into organising today's event, the weather for which was perfect. Paul's briefing lasted for a while.

Many of the participants and marshals are regulars at the Sunday morning 2km and 5km community runs, which take place on some of the paths that were used today. However, the 10km route uses more of the park to complete two interlinked circuits on each 5km lap.

Starting very slowly, after a while I encountered runners coming from the other direction on the path that links the two loops. I missed taking photos of the leaders but some of the quicker runners passed from the other direction whilst I was on this section.

Damian Bowman - 184 - position 25

Mike Walsh - 42 - position 23

Ian Dodds - 122 - position 28

Paul Lockett - 61 - position 34

Tommy Bancroft - 93 - position 41

Tristan Pocock - 132 - position 40

The course was very well marshalled by a large team of volunteers - far more than those needed for the usual two lap 5km course - hence this course is not practicable as a regular route due to the need for so many marshals. Bottom Bridge, pictured below, is handled in unfamiliar directions and marks the start of the short section where I was meeting faster runners who had completed the far loop twice.

David Pearson - 125 - position 17

Mike Walsh - again

I'm catching up with folk now, my second 5km being three minutes quicker than my first 5km.

Tristan, one of the Wythenshawe parkrun run directors, again

Frank Cordingley flew past in the opposite direction. He finished a little ahead of Sue, who must have gone through here just after I had left this 'sociable' section.

After passing a dozen or so folk, I encouraged Iain Weatherall to stay with me and we ran together for the last 2km at a respectable 6 minute kilometre pace.

I finished in 1:02:54 in position 129 out of the 168 participants. 
Sue finished in 49:59 in position 56, first in her age group.

Full results should be here, and ours are below the picture of Sue running.

One day I'll work out how to take a decent selfie!

Nice wooden medals. All in all an excellent event. I do hope it will continue, hopefully with greater numbers. It's a cheap event to enter, so I suspect it's a marketing challenge regarding numbers.

Anyway, congratulations to Paul and his huge team of volunteers for organising a great event in memory of a running legend.