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.
Emmanuel Parish Church
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…
A very hazy view towards Blackpool and the Fylde Coast
…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.
Emmanuel Parish Church
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…
A very hazy view towards Blackpool and the Fylde Coast
…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.
The steps to and from the beach / main road.
The Coastal Boulevard?
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.
In memory of Monopoly
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.
To be continued…when my web hosts are more stable!
