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Wednesday Walk For all walks meet at the top car park at Whitaker Park at 9.00 am (entrance opposite Ski Rossendale). The start photo
Jack’s bluebell walk was a bit of an unknown as he could only guess at the state of the flowers from fifty miles away, his eyesight not being as good as it was. But he bravely went with it and twelve of us assembled in the excellent free car park, with clean toilets, just over the bridge into Halton near Lancaster where we were ordered to order bacon butties at the cafe or he wouldn’t take us for a walk. Boy! were they
The trip up was drizzle and spray, not nice at all, and with poor Derek, sans biker chick, on his big Honda out in the weather. Things started to look up as we took the start picture and set off to the east along the bank of the river Lune. Slow moving and still wide the river meanders quite a bit through grazing lands and woodland where we hoped to find the bluebells all rampant and, well blue, just waiting for our inspection. There wasn’t a prize for the first sighting but a lot of noise signaled that there was at least one in there. In fact there were lots of them along with wild garlic, primrose, and occasional daffs. The river had been very high in the recent past leaving grasses in the trees eight feet above the present level. A beautiful metal bridge on stone supports carrying a water pipe stood as an example of what British engineering was able to do before the rot set in and they tried slab motorway bridges that need constant attention. The decoration built into it spelt pride.
Jack had clearly stated at the start that the bacon butties were in lieu of a brew stop and we would walk until lunchtime but he wasn’t prepared to risk it when a convenient bank for sitting on presented itself and they opened field rations. We didn’t stay long and were soon faced with a mixed herd of bullocks and sheep that escorted us off the premises and obviously enjoyed doing it. A large single swan refused to fly but the geese obliged being much more agile on the take-off run. I have never seen a swan take off from land, maybe it can’t run fast enough and needs the water. We bade farewell to the river and climbed steeply up a surfaced road to Aughton, a small and, until now, peaceful hamlet where we commandeered the bench on the grass at the cross roads to have our lunch. Why they wanted lunch after the start food, brew time and Joan’s cakes on a gentle walk.....
The conversational subject matter caused quite a bit of noise and the locals, those that hadn’t seen us coming and left, stayed indoors hoping for the best. Elaine decided to try for some privacy round the corner of the track but was greeted by a loud vehicle horn, that put a damper on her aspirations and also raised the laughter level as we prepared to leave. Turning back towards Halton we didn’t find Highfield although Far, Middle and Lower Highfield were all visited with their collections of rusting farm machinery, some in the works of art category and some just junk. The heat haze limited views down the Lune Valley towards Lancaster. The woods between Lower Highfield and Hawkshead had downed trees all over the path and detours proved necessary, a mild inconvenience only. Jack took us along a new path not shown on the map that entered the car park from the west and we were nicely in time to enjoy proper tea from mugs (with handles) from the affable cafe folk before closing time. Some of us sat a while in the sunshine admiring the scene over the river towards Kirby Lonsdale and explaining to Ann that the wind turbines across the valley are not DRIVEN by electricity but make the stuff for us to use once they take out the lumps. Thanks Jack for a pleasant walk in new territory, that bacon buttie was good as well.
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