Thursday 20 March 2014 – Eccles, The Bridgewater Canal, and Worsley Woods – An Evening Stroll

Having enjoyed a plodders walk in this vicinity in daylight just a week ago, by coincidence this month’s evening walk was a shortened version of the same route. This relieved me of any navigational difficulties and my lack of friends on the night meant that I could enjoy a brisk stroll without feeling I was rushing anyone.

I jumped off the Eccles tram, just 5 minutes late, and rushed past the Duke of York in an effort to catch up anyone who’d gone ahead.

They were bound to be found in the Queens Arms at Patricroft, which is where we used to start this walk before the days of the Eccles tramline. It’s probably a better starting point.

The pub was empty, so after emptying my glass I headed alongside the Bridgewater Canal, dodging well camouflaged runners and dog walkers, to the Waterside hostelry.

The beer garden enjoys a good view of Worsley’s lighthouse, the beam from which was rather outshone by a nearby streetlight.

A little further along the canal, a group of Sea Cadets was attempting to launch a small dinghy as I hurried past – there was rain in the air.

I used this footbridge, but could have continued along the towpath.

The view from the footbridge was however quite acceptable.

Either exit from the canal brings one out at this fine Chinese establishment if you are hungry, or aiming for Old Warke Dam.

At the dam the light was a bit dim, as it was whilst I stumbled along the paths and boardwalks to join the old loopline. No torch was needed, however, and once at the loopline it was an easy walk to Monton, and thence to Eccles in increasingly heavy rain.

I just missed a tram, so The Eccles Cross came in handy.

Here’s my route, according to the Garmin gadget, 10 km in an hour and a half.

Better than crashing in front of a TV – perhaps someone will join me next time – it’s a good evening route.

Clayton Vale Mountain Bike Trails

A few months ago about 10 km of singletrack (one-way designated) mountain bike trails were opened in Clayton Vale, beside the National Cycling Centre.

It’s just a short drive across town from Timperley, and today I got around to visiting the trails for the first time. It was another lovely spring day in Manchester.

The trails are enjoyable and easy (if taken at my gentle pace), with smooth surfaces apart from a few deliberately placed rocks on the red trails. A lot of the corners, like the one shown above, are made easy by banking, and the trails were generally dry.

Here’s the flier. If you look at that, it shows all 10 km of trails.

It took me a little more than an hour to cover most of them, within a two lap route. I just missed out the red section from point 47 to point 57, the short black section, and the light blue section south of the river. The total distance for my two laps was about 13 km, and the Garmin gadget tracked my route as shown below.

It’s pretty good exercise as there are a few brief steep sections. The red route would be a bit quicker with suspension, but the other trails are smooth enough to enjoy at speed on a lighter bike like my old Shogun Trailbreaker. In fact, they would be perfectly amenable to hybrid or even road bikes.

Altogether a very pleasurable little outing, though sadly I narrowly missed out on a stroll with JJ and Rick.

14 to 16 March 2014 – Summer arrives in the Wye Valley

Sue and I arrived at Welsh Bicknor Youth Hostel before 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon, soon after which Andrew J joined us for a 4 km circuit, past the church.

There were deer in the wood behind the hostel, which is pictured here with the last of the sun reflected in its windows.

Saturday dawned bright and cheery, especially in the kitchen on this self-catered Rentahostel weekend for 33 of us.

There was then much milling around as the party split into two groups plus a rock climbing duo.

Previous days had been foggy here, but today the clouds lifted and cleared quickly.

A group of 17 of us set off along the Wye Valley Way to the west. 15 others headed east.

Soon we crossed the River Wye over an old railway bridge. Julia, whose 80th birthday party we'd enjoyed last year, joined us for the day – pictured here with Edwina.

I survived a visit to the river bank, luckily avoiding the land mines.

The going along the old railway line was very easy until we came to the place where it disappeared into a padlocked tunnel. From now on the route undulated, leading to many long pauses during the day's attempt to keep all 17 people together. Unfortunately Julia had fallen the previous week and didn’t realise that she may have cracked a couple of ribs. This hampered her progress on the uphill sections, leaving plenty of time for us to observe the wheeling buzzards and the emerging flora, including the Glistening Ink Cap and Primroses shown below.

Luckily we didn't need to cross the river near Symonds Yat East as the ferry wasn’t operating.

The conditions were very dry, so those of us wearing gaiters soon realised that they were superfluous, as were our boots.

Whilst John and Julia took a short cut through a polecat zone up to a viewpoint, the rest of us pottered along to Symonds Yat East, where there were toilets and intricate sculptures.

A short climb to the viewpoint afforded fine views, including our earlier route past a white cottage, now glimpsed far below.

We spent some time here, admiring a pair of peregrine falcons in the trees below us. A good spot, Ken.

Here we are at the Symonds Yat viewpoint.

After lunch, with added brownies and shortbread, by the river we continued along 'The Slaughter' – the site of an ancient battle - and up through woods to beyond Hillersland, for a tea break.

Luckily, there were plenty of benches on which to laze in the sunshine whilst waiting.

Some hedgerow detritus was encountered. The car was apparently alarmed.

We slowly drifted back to Welsh Bicknor in time to enjoy the evening light and pots of tea on the patio. The other 15 arrived later, having spent most of the day in a refreshment tent.

Here’s our route - 22 km, with 625 metres ascent, taking us a shade under a very leisurely 8 hours.

Dodgy ovens and other hurdles were overcome, and various chefs contributed to an excellent dinner. Congratulations go to Sue W for managing to organise all that and do most of the main course cooking. £9 a head for food for the weekend isn’t at all bad either. We didn’t skimp!

On Sunday many went home, via a selection of sub-Marilyn sorts of targets, whilst 15 of us went to Kymin, near Monmouth, for another circular walk in exceedingly summery conditions.

Sue W was appointed 'custodian of the map', and like the previous day the unplanned route was made up as we went along. Here she is, making it up.

We soon inadvertently left the Offa's Dyke path we’d started along and headed across a field past a fine looking house near where Wood Anemones were nicely in flower.

After crossing a series of dry fields, we reached the metropolis of Newland, which for a small village sports a particularly fine church.

There were also some Almshouses that had been very nicely refurbished.

"Follow me" woofed the dog, so Jess, Claire, Elaine, Liz, Richard, Jenny, John and Edwina did just that and were never seen again.

The rest of us passed beside Newland Falls, where some noisy sheep and lambs were being attended to by their conscientious masters.

We circled around to regain the Offa's Dyke path in the opposite direction, and after a while emerged from the woods to an excellent viewpoint above Redbrook for a timely lunch break.

Now we were down to seven, there was plenty of cake for everyone.

Soon we were off again, heading for the top of the hill in the centre of the picture below (Kymin).

There were large banks of Lesser Celandine this weekend - hard to capture on film in the bright light.

We admired the views and benches at Redbrook Village Green before enjoying a lovely woodland path that delivered us efficiently to Monmouth, where there's a railway junction that is sadly no longer operative.

We didn't visit Monmouth town, instead hurtling up the hill to Kymin through beech woods that reminded Sue and me of last year's visit to the Apennines.

In a few weeks time these slopes will be filled with bluebells.

Our final destination, The Round House, dates from 1796.

There were fine views beyond Monmouth into deepest Wales (aka The Black Mountains) from here. We admired these in midsummer-like sunshine that accompanied the final slurps from our flasks.

After giving some advice to a couple of novice backpackers, we moved on to the Naval Temple, a small but magnificent structure opened in 1800 and commemorating numerous British maritime successes..

After one final look back we then dispersed our separate ways for easy journeys home - the Wye Valley isn't as far from Manchester as some may think.

Here’s our route for today - 17 km with 470 metres ascent in a slightly more brisk 5.5 hours.

There’s a much more comprehensive slideshow here. Quite a few photos (99) due to the wonderful summery weather and the lovely scenery.

Thanks to Sue W for organising this weekend, and to Julia for providing dinner in Tewkesbury on our way home.

Wednesday 12 March 2014 – Eccles, The Bridgewater Canal, and Worsley Woods – A Plod

Last week I volunteered to lead an East Lancs LDWA plodders walk at short notice. I could choose my own route, so for convenience I chose Eccles Metrolink Station as the start point. The platform is visible from Morrison’s cafe, so that’s a good place to wait.

Only Allan R turned up. However, soon after setting off, we came across Alan R emerging from his first wild camp of the year.

“This tent is rubbish” he was heard to remark.

We soon passed Monton lighthouse, from where shipping on the Manchester Ship Canal can be warned about fog (or more usually bandits) approaching from Liverpool. Queen Victoria’s replica barge is just out of picture, if you care to believe me.

The two Alans (my keyboard interprets an ‘l’ in brackets in rather a strange way!) then marched off towards Worsley whilst I sought a coffee bush. This was no TGO Challenge training walk – a cracking pace was set.

Alan professed to know some of the residents of these new houses, planted on the fields of his youth and owned by Mr and Mrs F Wallet.

He even admitted that in those elevated circles he is known as Mr B Itch…

Marching on towards old Worsley, a focus of the Duke of Bridgewater’s empire, where barges were used to bring coal out of the many tunnels of coal mines, everything looked very serene in the sunshine on this otherwise foul winter’s day.

Eventually we forsook the canal towpath and headed across a bone dry field. Next to us, someone had apparently transported a section of the Burnley Way.

We reflected on the Plodders’ reasoning for abandoning its attempt to walk the Burnley Way, whilst enjoying elevenses with some golfers who seemed to be using us for target practice. The Alans appeased them with some ribald banter. Cake was consumed.

Once the deluge had cleared, the sky went blue again and blossom blossomed, as it does.

“Those look tastier than my breakfast”, admitted our resident wild camper, spotting some bracket fungus. He found the red variety (not pictured) particularly mouth watering. He will no doubt be able to offer his TGO Challenge companions invaluable foraging advice when they run out off provisions in May.

After wandering along the old Roe Green railway loopline for a while, we paused for lunch on some steps, as it was 1pm. A bench would have been handy, but we didn’t realise that such facilities would occur at 100 metre intervals for the rest of the walk. Alan found one dedicated to me, but even as we proceeded down the track I perceived a man with a squeezebox breaking it up for firewood.

A planned diversion from the loopline took us through Worsley Woods. A delightful area full of wild flowers such as this unseasonably early Cow Parsley.

The path wound round to Worsley Dam, and some particularly attractive old buildings.

A tunnel beneath the A572 road avoided conflict with traffic, which was just as well as the Alans seemed to be involved in a vigorous debate/love-in.

Back on the loopline, Allan chatted up a young lady with a smiling infant for a while, passing the time profitably before reaching civilisation in the form of Monton’s Unitarian church.

The grade II* listed Unitarian Church was built between 1873 and 1875 and replaced the original Monton Chapel built in 1697. The tower and steeple are separate from the main body of the church - this is because they were an afterthought and not part of the original plan. They now house the bell from the original chapel which was retained in memory of the earlier building. The lychgate was erected in 1895 in memory of Henry Leigh.

There’s an Institute of Physics blue plaque on the side of the church which reads 'John Henry Poynting FRS 1852-1914 Physicist, born in Monton, discovered the Poynting vector and weighed the earth. Attended this church until 1878.' John Henry Poynting was the son of the vicar of the church and was born in a cottage on Monton Road where Prince's apartments now stand. Craters on Mars and the Moon are named after this famous Monton son who was professor of physics at Birmingham University from 1880 to 1914.

Alan then took charge of navigation, as he used to live nearby, and he miraculously negotiated a route down Monton’s high street, past a rather dilapidated former museum, into Eccles where the sad remains of the Cross Keys, and some other-worldly gargoyles greeted The Three Amigos.

Then we all jumped on a tram and headed home. Even Alan seems to have made it back to somewhere safe, as he has been able to find time to record his (probably largely fictional) version of events littered with points of historical interest here.

Our route is shown below - 16 km with minimal ascent, in a little over 4 hours.

Thanks for your company, Alans, it was a good day out.

There’s a slideshow here, with some wonderful commentary from the Alans.