Sunday 27th July 2014, Ribble Roaming

A bit out of order: A 20(ish) mile LDWA walk

This is ‘A bit out of order’, not because of a disorderly walk, but ‘cos there are earlier things, waiting in the background, that should I have written up first…..but you know how it is. Worralot of commas in that sentence.
Anyroadup:
Ken, our Glorious Walk Leader, has long legs. Very long in fact. So long that I don’t think he does short walks very often…..so today he coerced a dozen walkers (and a dog from Skipton) on this route wot he had invented.
Being a bit unfit at the moment I thought a bit of a stretch would do me good, so….at 9am we set of from Marle Wood Car Park which is unusual as it’s free. Perhaps Lancashire County Council have forgotten about it.
We walked south towards Copster Green….and then, just for the sake of variety I imagine, we walked north (ish) to cross the River Ribble close to Dinkley Hall, a Grade 2 listed building.

 Crossing t’Ribble

 Ken, our Glorious Leader (L) with some of the group. And the doggy from Skipton. 

Ken dragged led us along the river banks of the River Ribble and then the River Hodder. I think the photograph above was taken by the confluence of the two rivers.

Cromwell’s Bridge over the River Hodder at SD705392

The new East Lancs LDWA Walks Secretaries of Distinction: Dave & Alma 

Our lunch stop was overlooking the back of Stonyhurst College, famous for teenage pupils absconding to the Caribbean. And Arthur Conan-Doyle, but I don’t think he absconded. Not to the Caribbean anyway.

Lunch

Post lunch Navigation Committee meeting

Next stop was at Hurst Green, home to the very excellent Millie’s Tea Shop that fed and watered me just a couple of weeks ago whilst backpacking the route of next year’s LDWA 100. Sadly we didn’t have time to call into Millie’s, but I did manage to grab a very nice ice cream from the local social club.

The next few miles coincided with the LDWA 100 route and the Ribble Way.

Leaving the Ribble Way to cross the road bridge over the river just the east of Ribchester we continued on the 100 route for a bit longer before a bit of jiggery-pokery delivered us very nicely back to our cars.

Ken’s route was excellent. the company was equally excellent. The weather was quite a bit excellent too. A chap can’t ask for much more, eh?

  Pendle Hill from just beyond the road bridge at Ribchester

Where we jolly-well went:

19-20 miles

More photographs here.