This was my walk over 16.5 miles from home to Dobbies Garden Centre in Southport…the long way round.
It’s not a secret that I love walking up hills, I’m not exactly enamoured with walking down them, my nerve doesn’t hold out and I constantly fear that I am about to fall over. In fact with the exceptions of Skiddaw, Great Dun Fell and Little Dun Fell on every hill that I have traversed, I’ve fallen over. On the flat however, I’m a walking legend! So it’s probably a good thing that I live here in wonderful Southport where the nearest and highest hill are sand dunes and rural walking with urban connections is such a pleasure…with the added bonus of having the Irish Sea on our doorsteps.
Last year – as my loyal readers will recall I attempted the gigantic Coastal Walk which essentially traverses Southport’s Coastal Road – it changes name a couple of times but it’s the same physical road. On this attempt last year I managed to do just 14.5 miles of the intended 18.5, abandoning at Marshside owing to the decision to wear walking boots on tarmac, I’ve never done that since but with regards to the walk itself I successfully completed the full 18.5 miles earlier this year. Since then I have longed to go back, in the opposite direction, this was coupled with the idea of walking through the beautiful yet rugged Marshside with the migrating (to here) Canada and Greylag Geese overhead and the sound and sights of the Irish Sea crashing it at high tide. In all honesty I could not have timed this better. I left home at five to ten and headed off up along Cambridge Road and Preston New Road. This route would feature virtually no turnings, one straight road, a left turn, and then the same road for roughly ten and an half miles. I felt the need to call in at the Spar shop in Churchtown as I needed water and would need more water later on in the walk. Detour over, by 10:45 I was at the roundabout – now missing the once iconic “The Plough” pub at the meeting of Marine Drive, Banks Lane, Water Lane and Rufford Road. I turned left…
…And the wind greeted me. For the next ten and an half miles that wind would be my only companion, at Crossens Marsh it felt only mild but getting stronger all the time. I passed by the green turn off path which stretches through the Hesketh Golf Coarse and is part of the 21 miles Sefton Coastal Path – which I intend to walk in its’ entirety…one day! Across the road from the former path is the continuation which leads into Banks via Fiddlers Ferry. Now the distractions of previous walks had passed by it was straight on all the way to Marshside proper with a steady stream of the afore mentioned geese overhead – the poor things were getting a right old buffeting from the ever increasing wind, how something so light can mange to hold its’ coarse in such fierce winds is a mystery to me and another reason why I respect these common but noble birds. I resisted the temptation to try to catch a photograph as the Geese as they flew overhead as This was my walk over 16.5 miles from home to Dobbies Garden Centre in Southport…the long way round.
It’s not a secret that I love walking up hills, I’m not exactly enamoured with walking down them, my nerve doesn’t hold out and I constantly fear that I am about to fall over. In fact with the exceptions of Skiddaw, Great Dun Fell and Little Dun Fell on every hill that I have traversed, I’ve fallen over. On the flat however, I’m a walking legend! So it’s probably a good thing that I live here in wonderful Southport where the nearest and highest hill are sand dunes and rural walking with urban connections is such a pleasure…with the added bonus of having the Irish Sea on our doorsteps.
Last year – as my loyal readers will recall I attempted the gigantic Coastal Walk which essentially traverses Southport’s Coastal Road – it changes name a couple of times but it’s the same physical road. On this attempt last year I managed to do just 14.5 miles of the intended 18.5, abandoning at Marshside owing to the decision to wear walking boots on tarmac, I’ve never done that since but with regards to the walk itself I successfully completed the full 18.5 miles earlier this year. Since then I have longed to go back, in the opposite direction, this was coupled with the idea of walking through the beautiful yet rugged Marshside with the migrating (to here) Canada and Greylag Geese overhead and the sound and sights of the Irish Sea crashing it at high tide. In all honesty I could not have timed this better. I left home at five to ten and headed off up along Cambridge Road and Preston New Road. This route would feature virtually no turnings, one straight road, a left turn, and then the same road for roughly ten and an half miles. I felt the need to call in at the Spar shop in Churchtown as I needed water and would need more water later on in the walk. Detour over, by 10:45 I was at the roundabout – now missing the once iconic “The Plough” pub at the meeting of Marine Drive, Banks Lane, Water Lane and Rufford Road. I turned left…
…And the wind greeted me. For the next ten and an half miles that wind would be my only companion, at Crossens Marsh it felt only mild but getting stronger all the time. I passed by the green turn off path which stretches through the Hesketh Golf Coarse and is part of the 21 miles Sefton Coastal Path – which I intend to walk in its’ entirety…one day! Across the road from the former path is the continuation which leads into Banks via Fiddlers Ferry. Now the distractions of previous walks had passed by it was straight on all the way to Marshside proper with a steady stream of the afore mentioned geese overhead – the poor things were getting a right old buffeting from the ever increasing wind, how something so light can mange to hold its’ coarse in such fierce winds is a mystery to me and another reason why I respect these common but noble birds. I resisted the temptation to try to catch a photograph as the Geese as they flew overhead as tempting fate, I had no desire to walk into something nasty or wander into the path of oncoming traffic – this is after all Southport’s most dangerous road.
At times I admit the ever-present wind was tedious, no quiet walk in the country for me this day. The weather had been lovely up until turning on to Marine Drive but at times I did feel what I thought were drops of rain, however, given that I was walking along side a vast body of water – the Irish Sea was looking decidedly ‘choppy’ further out at sea today, it was always possible that I was merely being hit by distant sea splashes instead. At the start of the sea wall I decided to drop down onto the beach for a while. This meant that the wind that had been battering me would now sail over me as I was now some ten feet lower in altitude. The air did seem a little more peaceful here and I managed to get a good few photographs of the sea and the birds bobbing about upon it. It was a real pleasure to be so close to the sea and it was only when I deduced that the lovely path I was meandering was about to finish that I climbed the steps back onto the main road once more.
Whilst on the beach I did spy an oddity, I am going to assume that this was a beloved cat or dog – and I am hoping that whatever animal this is / was is not interred here on the beach and this is purely a memorial stone! As I got closer to the centre of Southport I noticed how quiet it was today, granted it was only just past noon but there was a surprising absence of people – especially for a Saturday. Sometimes one tends to wonder what everyone else apparently knows and nobody has seen fit to tell you…At least the short walk through this stretch of Marine Drive offered a great deal more shelter from the wind. Within just a few minutes I was back into the more exposed section of the road again…I passed by the amusement park and Weld Road (which will feature on another future walk into Birkdale) and before long the straight road was ahead of me. And this is a straight road, only changing its’ angle on the map for a few hundred feet on the approach to the turn off for Shore Road. On one side of me were sand dunes – scores of them, on the other little stretches of what can only really be termed as scrub land punctuated by the odd tiny glade of trees – if a small forest located on a flat stretch of land can be labelled as a glade!
This is where the coast road shares a similarity with a walk over ‘The Moss’ – nothingness in superabundance…and it is oddly captivating! ‘The Moss’ has its’ hazard – if one wanders with one’s head in the clouds not following the Wainwright directive of ‘watch where you are putting your feet’ there is a slight chance that you will fall down the gulleys running practically the entire length of the road. Likewise the Coastal Road’s hazard is if you don’t keep turning around to see if any cyclists are about to come within a hair’s breadth of hitting you…you’ll jump out of your skin! This only happened to me once today but the first time that I attempted to walk the full length of this road it must have happened about six times. Even though this is an enjoyable walk in its’ own right there is still a great sense of relief when passing by the ‘Sands’ pub. This does not signify that we’re almost there – far from it in fact, but on a road with very few landmarks – natural or man-made, the odd one thrown in for good measure does help to break up the dead straight road.
I’m always inspired by the sheer volume of sand-dunes in this locale, they seem to stretch for miles – and probably do go some distance. I would love to be able to say that I am determined to take up dune walking, it would be a great way to lose quite a bit of weight quite rapidly…even if I did then go on to gain calf muscles the size of lamp posts! On a good number of dune summits and flanks are very clearly defined paths – these would be the easy ones but as for the rest (and the rest by far outnumbers the dunes with defined paths) then each person transiting each dune is in essence a trailblazer – and sand is not a forgiving medium upon which to walk…I’ll leave it to others to carry forward this particular pastime. A hundred more dunes then another landmark…the railway bridge above the northern line. From here an extremely strong person could throw a stone to the end of Coastal Road – for the rest of us it’s about a quarter of a mile – Google Maps says .6 of a mile – I’m beginning to lose faith in Google Maps. Another ten minutes walk (hmm maybe Google maps was correct) and I am at the corner of Coastal Road and the A565 Liverpool Road. Coastal Road – done, again. Now with a right foot which feels like it’s trying to expand downwards I have just to make it the next six miles to home…onwards!
It’s an odd state of affairs that the road I was now on – the A565 is actually a lot quieter though busier than Coastal Road – the maximum that most people tend to drive along this road is in-between 30-40 miles an hour (apart from boy racer Friday nights in Summer when the weather is good), on Coastal Road the speed limit is 50 mph – and most tend to disregard this – another reason why that is Southport’s most dangerous road. The A565 is no shrinking violet either, this being the main road from Southport over to Formby and Crosby. The walk along this section is only enlivened by a graveyard! The statues and other ornaments grab the attention to such a degree that I found myself almost looking backwards at it as I walked on by. Soon enough the landmark that is the Carr Lane turn-off came into view and I new that if needed…I was on a bus route – the number 44 that could take me to within two hundred metres of my front door. This is never a good thought to carry around whilst walking, it’s like offering a cigarette to a smoker or a bar of chocolate to a dieter…the temptation becomes too great. I walked along the pavement with each step beginning to hurt my right foot more and more and couldn’t help but notice that my thirst was getting stronger. Eventually I called in at the same shop that I have visited on the last two passings and bought a bottled milkshake – not exactly healthy but then by this point I had walked in excess of fifteen miles – I knew this as my phone’s “Map My Walk” had told me so.
But eventually, I would succumb to the temptation of the bus ride, I shouldn’t have left home with my Arriva Annual pass – but then given the pains my right foot was sending out, there’s a point when to carry on just isn’t wise. And so at the bus stop outside of Dobbies Garden Centre on Bentham Way I decided to board the imminent number 44 bus and to just give my feet a break. This had been sixteen and an half miles on pavement (okay about 1/2 a mile on sand) and for a good percentage of it I was being slapped around the face by the breeze from the Irish Sea. The weather had been far better than I could have hoped and towards the end of the Coastal Road stretch it was more or less balmy…and people will imply the same about me. I’m always going to look forward to walking Southport’s Coastal Road, us sea-siders are a fortunate bunch in living where we do, so for me it is only right to appreciate by walking along this wonderful stretch of coast at least twice per year.
