A Bikepack to Chester, Day 1

Wednesday 1st August, to Delamere Forest

A quick pose for the paparazzi on the TransPennine Trail at Lymm.

I’ve not bikepacked for years so I felt a short trip would be a good plan for a shake-down – particularly as a bikepacking trip around the Cheshire Ring is coming up in the near future.

Jon, always happy to oblige, readily agreed to join me on this trip. We had originally planned to set out on this trip on the previous day, but a poor weather forecast convinced us to delay our departure by a day.

Jon arrived at JJ Towers soon after 9.30am, and after coffee and other tactics failed to further delay our departure, we set off.

The idea had been to get on to the towpath of the Bridgewater Canal in Timperley and to cycle out to Warrington. The wet summer had succeeded in turning that section of towpath into a quagmire – too much for our hybrid tyres to cope with. Our FWA, The TransPennine Trail was a most suitable alternative.

Image taken from http://www.seftoncoast.org.uk/

Jon was riding his new Decathlon hybrid bike. He’d had some teething problems with bike, but Decathlon in Stockport had proved helpful. Unfortunately a replacement rear wheel had been needed but as the new one was of a rather higher quality than the original, he wasn’t complaining.

I was riding Diana, my Dawes hybrid. It’s a solid bike with a large frame which suits me. I replaced the original wheels which has improved the bike. Shod with Schwalbe Marathons, I feel quite confident cycling over surfaces that might lead to punctures in ordinary tyres.

Both bikes were fitted with panniers stuffed with our kit.

We trundled westwards at a very leisurely pace – we weren’t racing and had nothing to prove. We were on our holidays!

The Trail leaves the old railway line in Warrington, taking to the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal which still boasts relics of the area’s industrial past.

Steel lattice road bridge over the Manchester Ship Canal 

 

Looking East from the swing-bridge at Stockton Heath….

 

….and looking West

We left the Transpennine Trail in Warrington, and after about a km of tarmac we arrived at the Bridgewater Canal. The surface of the towpath was really quite good and we enjoyed tootling along in the sunshine until we could no longer ignore our rumbling tums. A halt was called at a pleasant stop by a road bridge. Butties were demolished and Jon fired up his meths stove to make a cuppa. Ducks and their little ducklets quacked around, hoping we’d take pity on them and chuck them some crumbs. We didn’t – although plenty of other folks had brought (I assume) stale loaves to feed the ducks.

Lunch

A little later we felt an ice-cream stop coming on. After all, the sun was shining and it would have been rude not to celebrate the fact. The village shop at Moore provided the necessary whilst a comfortable bench seat on the towpath provided comfort for our nether regions.

The canal now headed south, past Daresbury and under the M56 at Preston Brook where we changed to the Trent & Mersey Canal.

The towpath surface was very good, making for easy cycling. all manner of boats were moored along the canal, most were pleasure craft whilst some were clearly working boats.

At Preston Brook the Trent & Mersey Canal enters a tunnel, at 1272 yards, one of the longest in the country. The canal is only wide enough for travel in one direction so a simple timetable arrangement is in operation, everyone takes their turn:

The ‘towpath’ is routed over the top of the tunnel – it was just about here that it started to rain. We sheltered under overhanging trees for the best part of an hour before sunshine returned and we continued our ride. 

As we cycled on, the canal below us, we spotted some odd-looking buildings. Some were air-vents for the tunnel, it wasn’t obvious what others were for.

 

Dutton, the South end of the tunnel

The well-surfaced towpath had a personality change after Dutton. The tarmac had been replaced by slippy, slurpy, slidy gloop:

Hybrid bike tyres are certainly better than road tyres on surfaces like this – knobblies would have been preferable. From time-to-time we had to get off and push the bikes, pedalling just didn’t work.

  Location clarification

I don’t know how old these signs are, I would imagine they date back to the days of working canals.

Wooden-hulled narrow boats close to Acton Bridge

Acton Bridge, just visible in the distance 

We left the grassy towpath close to Acton Bridge and crossed the swing-bridge over the River Weaver. We were undecided whether to attempt a wild camp in the forest, or to wimp out and use the Camping & Caravan Club site….complete with showers. A beer stop was called at the Tigers Head, Norley. After lengthy discussions lasting all of 2-3 minutes, we chose the proper campsite. It was the showers that swung it.

 Rehydration stop

We were only a couple of miles from the campsite so we could quite easily have spent (much) longer at the pub, but we were getting hungry.

A short stretch of tarmac soon delivered us to the edge of the forest. Good forest tracks made for easy cycling. At around 7pm we rolled into the campsite. Camping & Caravan Club sites have a policy of never turning away cyclists or backpackers so we were quite confident of getting on.

Tents up, brews made and tea on the go, it had been an excellent and very laid-back day’s cycling in good company.

The day’s vital statistics:

45km with 350m of uppery.

The first bit of today’s ride 

The second bit of today’s ride

(Click these images to enlarge)

More tomorrow!

Sunday 29th July, Walkies to Stockport

It had been a late night (a very early morning actually) caused by playing at a wedding ceilidh in Kettleshulme the previous evening. I woke up and realised I needed to get out for a walk.

You know how it is.

I had only very recently had an email enquiring about walks from my mate Jon who just happens to be a very fine fellow – a backpacker, Challenger, cyclist, Ukelele player (ukelele-ist?) and all round good egg. Now Jon’s partner Emma is a very fine fiddler – in fact she was playing in the same ceilidh band as me the previous evening. They live in Northenden, just a couple of miles from JJ Towers.

After an early morning exchange of text messages The Battle Plan was finalised and put into action. I arranged to meet Jon at the end of his road and we would walk to Stockport on the banks of the River Mersey. The walk started well enough, it’s a route I’ve done before….but that didn’t stop me taking a wrong turning soon after our rendezvous.

Oh dear me no, I can get lost anywhere. Just ask around.

With the aid of a map we were soon back on track, following the swollen River Mersey - the cause of which were the recent heavy rains.

Jon, politely trying to look like he was happy for me to navigate

 

Cyclists and runners whizzed past us as we sauntered towards Stockport. The sound of the M60 traffic was a constant reminder that our ‘country walk’ was in fact a narrow artery of green through suburban south Manchester.

 

Jon had the foresight to grab a Ginster’s Pastie (cold, so he didn’t have to pay VAT) before we set out. I just had a banana and a bottle of water. There may have been a Mars Bar too, but I’m not admitting to that without a signed witness statement.

In the not too distant past The River Mersey was a liveless and polluted watercourse, poisoned by the untreated waste poured into it by industry….and the scroats who used to dump stolen cars into it. Today the river is much cleaner – chubb and trout have been caught, although the local cormorant population make successful angling difficult.

One that got away?

The weather was changeable – hot sunshine one minute, then heavy rain. Our waterproofs were on and off much of the walk.

We arrived in Stockport town centre just in time to miss the train back to Timperley. Luckily there is a decent Sunday bus service so we hopped onto the next bus and were back home in no time.

Thanks to Jon for his company – it’s good to have company on little jaunts like this.

Vital statistics: 15km, with not a lot of up….around 50m. Nice though.

July 2012

I’ve rather neglected this blog recently…so I’ll just post some pictures.

More of July’s photographs are here

More stuff to follow….when I’ve finished demolishing my remaining stocks of Aldi Dark Chocolate. Which is rather good.

Sunday 15th July, Haworth

 

Freaks in the Peaks are a jolly fine bunch. They like to laugh lots, dance lots, play music lots, some of them even drink lots. And they like to go for walks.

A typical Freaks weekend will consist of 20-40 dancers and musicians ‘camping’ at a village hall in a pretty part of the country. This is usually, but not exclusively, close to the Peak District. The weekend is spent learning new dances, practicing old dances, laughing lots, and doing all the other stuff that Morris Dancers do – including dancing outside pubs. Beer may be involved at some stage.

Although my dancing days are over (it’s the knees you know) I still like to laugh, play music, enjoy the occasional drink, and go for walks. This last bit is where I come in.

The Moorish Freaks weekend was held in the Yorkshire village of Haworth, famous for Kate Bush and Timothy Taylor.  For some strange reason the side wanted an experienced walker to recce and then lead a short but interesting walk on the Sunday morning. Experienced walkers were impossible to come by….so they ended up with me.

A gentle 5 mile route was recced the weekend before the Great Event and all was deemed to be good.

On the morning of the walk, the Freaks assembled outside the Baptist Church where they had spent their weekend of frivolity, er, frivolitting. I’m sure there should be two ‘t’s in frivolitting, just one doesn’t look right…..nor does it sound right. Whatever.

A feature of these little walks is spontaneous dancing. This can happen anywhere, as long as the ground is reasonably level and there are no wild sheep around.

At a most unsuitable road junction there was spontaneous dancing.  It was good. Some car drivers stopped to watch the spectacle, others just shook their heads in disbelief before driving away – worried that they might catch something. Like fun.

A little further on, at Bronte Falls, which is close to Bronte Bridge, there was more spontaneity

Then a quick pose

Then we all went to the pub. En-route we came across some backpackers. They had been backpacking. they might even be members of The Backpackers Club - there was a club trip in the area that weekend. One of them had a Golite Pinnacle. I’ve got one of those. They’re good.

At the pub, the Wuthering something-or-other at Stanbury, there was more dancing and stuff: It’s what Morris Dancers do

Then we all went home, apart from the hard-working organisers who stayed behind to clean the church hall and leave it spick and span. What fine folks they are.

The walk was a gentle 5 miles with around 500ft of upness. Very pleasant.

I’m not sure if the Brontes would have approved.