West Lancashire LDWA Walkies

 

The West Lancashire LDWA ‘Tuesday Group’ lead some shorter walks, typically 10 – 12 miles, on, er, some Tuesdays. I joined them today for a wander around the very pleasant (ie not very muddy) Lancashire countryside.

Today’s walk, led by Doreen Viney, was a little over 11 miles. Kick-off was at 10am from Worthington Lakes, not very far from Wigan, where there’s a busy little factory where things are all the go, they don’t make Jakes or Eccles Cakes, or things you stick on walls, but night and day they work away at Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls.

Whoops, sorry about that….getting carried away again.

Anyway.

 Almost ready. Doreen, our glorious walk leader on the left.

Now I should point out that Doreen is no slouch when it comes to walking. Earlier today she complained to me that a recent 50 mile challenge walk had taken her 17 hours and she was a bit miffed at her poor time.

At bang on 10am the group set off, Doreen leading at a good pace. I knew better than to dawdle, if I lost sight of her on today’s walk I’d have been well stuffed. Walking in warm sunshine past Worthington Lakes (which are actually reservoirs) we headed east-ish to pick up the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. This canal has gone down in history as being the first Trans-Pennine canal to be started….but the last one to be finished. At a cost of 5 times it’s original budget I don’t think the accountants would have been too popular!

There are two reservoirs, Arley and Adlington. I think this is Adlington. Or Arley.

Our route followed everything from towpaths, field-footpaths, farm tracks, and just about every other sort of footway you could imagine. We could see Winter Hill for much of the walk, except when we couldn’t see it. But we knew it would still be there later, and it was. This is a Good Thing because it’s where our telly programmes come from and if it had gone there would be hell to play when I got home.

Winter Hill, famous for the telly. 

There were 16 on this walk. Some I knew, some others I recognised from other events. The good thing about LDWA events, certainly the East Lancs and West Lancs walks, is that everyone is made to feel very welcome. Even me – and I’m from Cheshire.

I spent some time walking with and talking to Terry who I’d first met on an East Lancs holiday earlier this year when we walked a section of the SW Coastal Path. You can see from the photo of Terry that he doesn’t like paparazzi!

Seriously (for a minute!), Terry is a good strong walker and good company.

We came across a couple of lads building a stone wall, although there didn’t seem to be any mortar visible, the presence of a small cement mixer suggested it wasn’t a true dry-stone wall.

At one point Blackpool Tower was clearly visible, but the cheap and nasty camera I had didn’t pick it out. I suppose I could draw one in to the photo below and just pretend it was the tower. Would that be cheating?

The weather remained good all day, unfortunately that meant that the pollen-count was up – sniffles and sneezes were audible from time-to-time. Doreen, not one to take prisoners, marched her charges on:

 

I was a little taken aback when I came across this sign. There are other references to things-Scottish in the area, Aberdeen Bridge for example. I’ve no idea what relevance these names have to this part of Lancashire.

Following a section of the Rotary Way for a while, we came to walk through part of Haigh Hall Country Park – a rather grand affair.

Terry approaching Haigh Hall Country Park. The look of disdain because the pub was shut.

At around 12.30 Doreen relented and allowed her followers a lunch break. She’s good like that. I mean, it wouldn’t do to have any in her party fading away through lack of food now, would it?

She found a nice bridge over the canal where we could enjoy our butties, before once again leading us onwards.

It’s good to know where you are! 

The River Douglas soon hove into view although it’s not much more than a large stream at this point. It rises not too far away at Rivington, ending up joining the River Ribble at Tarleton.

River Douglas 

More canals, stiles, footpaths and bits of farm track had us heading back to Worthington Lakes:

Although there was the odd obstruction:

The rest of the route was pleasant:

 

Back to the reservoirs again:

On the final approach to the car park I spotted this wonderful mushroomy-fungi thing on a tree:

We finished our little walk at around 2.35pm, 11.2 miles at in about 4 hours of walking = 2.8mph. Nice.

I don’t know the exact route we followed, but Doreen tells me it was something like: Worthington Lakes > Aberdeen Bridge > Little Scotland > Haigh > Haigh Hall Country Park > Arley Hall > back to Worthington Lakes.

More photographs of today’s walk can be found here.

Thanks for the walk Doreen, it was a good day out.