Friday 28 February 2014

February 28th to March 3rd 2014 Rotherhithe YHA, London

Twenty one members visited our capital city last weekend and stayed in
the modern YHA at Rotherhithe.



The hostel provided excellent value
for money, with bed, breakfast and evening meal being provided in
London for £37.00 per night.

Saturday we did a six mile walk around the city and saw many of the
key "sights". These included:







The Globe Theatre, Borough Market, St Paul's Cathedral, Covent garden,
Trafalgar Square, Fleet Street, Buckingham palace, Big Ben and the
Houses of Parliament.


On the Sunday Ken Hodgson led a walk down the Thames to Greenwich
where most of us went in the Maritime Museum. This was enjoyably
followed by sampling some excellent beer brewed in the Greenwich
meantime Brewery.

An optional curry meal in the evening was well attended.

Our thanks to Ken for an entertaining day.

is a possibility of organizing a trip to Brussels utilizing the Euro-star train service for a future event.



Chris Hughes



Sunday 16 February 2014

Werneth Low walk-16/02/14



Werneth Low walk-16/02/14

This photo was taken at Windy Harbour on a suitably windy but sunny day on our way back to Lymefield visitor centre in Broadbottom.


There were seventeen of us including three new members that set off from the site of the old water powered mills in Broadbottom, we climbed through the attractive woods that are now a nature reserve after which I shared out my big five 0 birthday cake. We reached the war memorial erected in 1921 for the men of Hyde that died in the first world war, then strode off to the Hare and Hounds for refreshments.
It stayed fine all day, that you can't say about many days this month.
Harvey

Sunday 9 February 2014

Lyme Park walk, 9 February 2014, 8.1/2 miles

Lyme Park walk, 9 February 2014, 8.1/2 miles

Oh dear ! The day dawned damp and overcast. I jogged my way to the start at Nelson

Pit, Higher Poynton (strange now to think of coal mining in deepest Cheshire). I had

stopped a couple of times to put on/take off my anorak in decidedly murky conditions.

I was surprised and delighted to see a good number of hikers assembled in the car

park, we totaled about 18 or so at the start (Sue H has the exact figure, Sue counted

us all as we squeezed through the gap in the hedge leading on to the canal towpath.)

At least half of those present I didn’t recognize and it transpired that they had come

along after reading of the walk on the ‘Meet Up’ web site; well done to John E for

organizing that.



We proceeded towards High Lane along the canal and as we moved off the canal to

follow the brook leading to Lyme park, it started to rain (again) and many of us

slipped on our wet weather gear. Fortunately, and against expectations, this proved

only to be a passing shower. Walking along to the park, there was plenty of mud;

in fact significantly more than when I had checked the route the previous week-end.

We moved into the park and walked up past The Cage; conditions underfoot not too bad by now. We descended to the Hall where some of our group beat a retreat directly

back to the start.


Those of us remaining climbed up through the woods and along moorland to

Bowstones, enjoying all the while magnificent views over the Cheshire plain.

We dropped down and followed the roadway to the park’s west gate catching sight

along the way of a deer with a splendid full set of antlers before picking up the

canal to return to the start.


We finished in good time to enjoy refreshments at a bustling ‘Boars Head’ where we met up with Tracy, Sue and Linda; the girls had

decided that discretion was the better part of judgement and had enjoyed a leisurely

lunch at a local carvery, far removed from any wind or rain!




Thanks to all who came along and hopefully the ‘meet up’ crew will not have been

too discouraged and that we might just see at least some of them again !

John H

Sunday 2 February 2014

Leeds & Liverpool Canal walk, 2 February 2014, Burscough to Wigan

Leeds & Liverpool Canal walk, 2 February 2014, Burscough to Wigan

I had been out walking in the countryside on Saturday and it had been a miserable et and windy day, so I was looking forward to Sunday with some trepidation. However,the day dawned bright and dry and the sun continued to shine for most of the day;it was was more like spring than winter.

Tricia made a welcome addition to our usual gang as we left from Burscough
heading back towards Wigan. Sue’s walking boots were buffed and polished so I
took a ‘before’ picture as we set off. 



Although the towpath was muddy in places;
conditions were good in the main and I never did get to take a ‘after’ picture at the end of the walk.




We proceeded through pleasant countryside and made our lunch time stop at Appley Bridge. Some locals recommended the ‘Waterside Inn’ but this establishment managed to disappoint just about all of our party as it had neither the food or cask ales advertised on a board outside the pub.




However, we continued further along the cut to the ‘Crooke Hall Inn’. Happily this was in complete contrast to the earlier hostelry. 




It had a won a ‘community local’ award and was bustling, serving yummy chips and local cask ale ( I sampled the excellent ‘Napoleon’s Retreat’, named after the Mike Harding sketch “Napoleon’s retreat from Wigan’, worth catching up with if you haven’t heard it, might well be on ‘You Tube’ somewhere.



From the pub it was only an hour’s walk on to Wigan past the newish football &
rugby ground and the somewhat underwhelming Wigan pier (just a short section of railway track where they used to tip coal from trucks into barges). We even made our train without the need to run the last few hundred yards.




 We finished with our final ‘treat’ of the day on the train, Sue’s friend’s Xmas cake, a case of saving the best until last.

An enjoyable out and now only 24 miles over two walks to Liverpool.

John H

Walk on Bleaklow 02/02/2014

Seven intrepid walkers braved the good weather to explore the crashed
aircraft on Bleaklow.

Progressing along the Doctor's Gate path, John G pointed out a bridge
we he proposed to his ex-wife. This seems to have been quite a
romantic affair with john producing a bottle of champagne and glasses
on a tray which he had previously stored under the bridge.

In view of the relative success of the marriage we dubbed this the
"Bridge of Sighs".

We subsequently ascended Bleaklow and found three aircraft wrecks
including a Superfortress - B29 bomber (this is the same class as
dropped the atomic bombs in Japan 1945), a Lancaster and a C47 Sky
train.

After the third wreck, the only wrecks to be found constituted certain
members of the party... (I jest........ we had a great team who
enjoyed a steep but dramatic descent from the last wreckage site.

Great weather!
Great team!
Great adventure!

regards from:

John G, Mark C, Sandra, Pete H, John E, self and Howard.

I hope to do a subsequent walk in the future "Crashed aircraft on Kinder".