Day 147 Blackpool to Southport

 

Date: Friday 20^th September 2013   Distance: 41.22 Miles

 

Despite a creaky bed we were so tired we put up with the noise every time we turned over and slept OK. It was a good buffet style breakfast and we left at 9. It was across the car park again then left onto the road with a right turn a bit further down which took us between the 2 sections of Pleasure Beach and underneath the rails of the monster Big Dipper.

 

We went south down the promenade that Bob described as technical because of all the obstacles like seats and pillars. As we came out of Blackpool, on a spur on the prom nearest the sea we passed a man holding a very long aerial (that I thought to be a fishing rod) and a back pack radio. If he had been more clandestine we would have thought “spy!”

 

We came out onto the road with high sand dunes on the left that leaked sand, blowing across the way. There was a holiday camp in a state of being demolished and then we were in Victorian St. Annes, built for the better off with flat sands good for sand yachting today. The characterful pier seems to be mostly well preserved, unlike many we have seen.

 

St. Annes led into Lytham St. Annes where it was lovely cycling by the sea with views across to Southport over the Ribble Estuary. Lytham is picturesque with old fishing boats, a grassy, muddy beach full of waders and an enigmatic windmill standing on Lytham Green. The mill ground flour until 1919 but is now a mill museum, closed today from early September. The placid town is full of Victorian buildings and has famous championship golf links.

 

We were soon next to a main road with markings for cycles at the side taking us to Warton. Jets occasionally deafeningly zoomed by from BAE Systems. A dyke hides the river at this point. The old road took us on to Freckleton where we turned off route for a tea at my brother’s house- really nice for a catch up.

 

We rode alongside the main road (584) then turned right on cycle route just before the road junction- not well marked. There was a huge crow cut in wood on a thick pole that I was sure had water level markings on. We were now on the 20 mile Guild Wheel circular route around Preston and we took it to the first bridge, a swing bridge by the boatyards. We could see the steeples that were probably in Preston. As we went through Hutton,boys in blue blazers waved from upper floor windows of the old school.

 

We were almost giving up on finding a pub open for food when we came across the Ram’s Head at Longton. Apparently renowned for its huge portions (we noticed no one ordered any puddings) the pub served unusually presented fare in such a way that we had to use two tables for our steak pie and my soup and pate. Bob’s pie was so tasty I had to help him finish it when he was beaten. The menu was novel, designed as if it was a 19th century newspaper but I found it hard to decipher.

We’ve vowed to come back!

 

At Hoole, one of the little villages we came to, there was a sound like loud wind chimes that turned out to be a class of children sitting cross legged in the school playground each doing their own thing on glockenspiels. Perhaps they made too much noise to be inside.

 

 

The church here wasn’t open like it said it was but a kind lady in the churchyard thought it might be from the 1600s with an 18th century  stone tower added on. The warm red bricks are thought to have come over in Dutch ships where they were used as ballast. Darker bricks make diamond and cross patterns on the walls. She said the north facing door was locked to keep out witches, a superstition surely from the 17th century. There was a trig point marked on the wall and the earliest grave was from 1728.On the tower is a sundial with an inscription from Horrocks, saying “Without the sun I am silent” in Latin. Horrocks who died when he was only 22 was born in 1618 and was the first to demonstrate that the moon moved in an elliptical path around the earth. He observed the transit of Venus in 1639 using a helioscope and in 2012 another transit was marked by a celebration in this church that was seen on NASAs website worldwide.

 

We came to Banks, a larger village with farms, like in East Anglia with flat fields of cabbages. Across the fields we could see the white ball on its iron tower marking BAE Systems at Warton, only 5 miles away as the bird flies, but 20 miles by way of road because of the river.

The long road we took was strangely named Ralph’s Wife’s Lane. I have found several stories as to why it was so called. Ralph was either a smuggler or a member of the Eliza Fernley lifeboat and when the boat sank his wife went looking for him on the marshes and died of exposure.. Wickepedia tells of a ghost that holds a lantern around the marsh reputedly Ralph’s wife looking for him still. Another story says Ralph was a local landowner who divorced his wife and gave her land at the end of a private lane. Later Ralph’s wife’s land became Ralph’s wife’s Lane

 

We went through a bit of the marsh as this was designated cycle path but it was surprisingly short. Back to the road we could see Blackpool Tower and the Big Dipper across the estuary then we were by open sea with marshlands close to the road. The wind was against us again as we followed the road left to Southport. Along the seawall there was bladderwrack (seaweed) strewn for some way across our path and as we rode over it, it sounded like bubble wrap popping. Then it was promenade

and we came to the pier, which has a train to take holidaymakers to its end and disappointingly is closed and gated at 5 pm. Opposite the pier is a leisure complex behind which is another Premier Inn, our B and B.

 

We ate in a Chinese buffet restaurant as we only felt like picking after The Pie. We had a cabaret of flocks of geese noisily doing flypast towards their roost. The buffet was a good choice but the drinks were very expensive. Our bike went under the stairwell in the Premier Inn and we had a quiet night despite the various night time activities on offer opposite.