Long day on Bowland

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23°C, warm milky sun with moderate SE breeze.

Woke and got the tent packed by 06.40.

A suitable place for breakfast wasn’t far away. The Moors are too dry to risk the chance of fire. Hence, water supply became a problem. I set off with 2 litres yesterday and finished it on coffee. The search for water required a change of route.

Eventually, tanked up, I resumes the route north following fence lines. The blanket bog is very dry and sinking in is unlikely. The next Summit was a sea of gulls, that seemed strangely out of place to me. I picked up a couple of helium balloons off the fence along here.

I collected 9 of these during this day. This particular one had printed ; Happy 9th Birthday printed in blue. What do parents think happens to balloons when their little one lets go of the cord? They end up in places like this. The helium is wasted too. There are better uses for that non-renewable resource. We can’t make helium, it slowly collects in gas pockets as a by product of radioactive decay. Our world’s stock has built up over billions of years giving us about 25 year’s supply. Idiot parents are throwing away this precious resource which is needed for medical services like MRI scanners. What a stupid, pointless product; you should choose which is more important- balloons or MRI scanners?

/Rant over

Next: head north on a loop towards the Trough of Bowland. This included another summit – Holdron Moss.

This trig point has seen better days. This just shows how deep and soft the boys are. Somebody built a cairn which I added 2 layers on top.

On reaching the Trough, a decision was made between the summit north or head along the road to cut the corner. I went up.

There’s quite a panorama up there but I was getting thirsty. I’d only had 3 litres all day. The water in the stream that runs through a sheep farm tasted very nice (after filter).

Part three; Langden Vale. This is a drinking water catchment, renowned because of the purity caused by the gritstone bedrock.

The return leg was a push because of impending darkness. Up on the moor needs compass work but mine let me down. I used landform clues to get orientated rather than walking on the compass. I took a slightly earlier descent into farmland as darkness fell. Passing one farkwas amusing. Their dogs were caged in the yard and were barking vigorously bat me. I could see 10 pairs of silver eyes shining in the torchlight.

That was a very long day and I really hoped to buy an easy meal at the services. No such luck.

Today’s data- 13.3 thousand calories.

Nearly 80!

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20°C light SE, deep blue.

Out on the Paddy-Wagon on the summer wheels. The route is flat but the variety comes from downwind zooms and climbing into the wind.

Rode back with a guy who told be about some of his achievements: 2nd in national champs for cyclo-cross, 360 miles in a 24hr TT. Best bit, he will be 80 later this year.

That was a good ride for me, comfortable and quick.

Whizz, two dead-ends

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16°C, moderare E breeze, sunny and dry.

Tried some new routes towards Leyland. I made some mistakes and had to backtrack several times. The default Google map didn’t offer info on rights of way. That’s my excuse and I paid the price by riding on gravel tracks on 23c road tyres in the hope of picking up a decent ride soon. Quite a few of those rough track surfaces were bolstered by building Ribble. They were reasonably level bit glinting ceramic shards were visible. I feared a puncture.

Nevermind, it was one.ofnthose comfortable days where riding at speed was easy. Very enjoyable.

Perhaps tomorrow I should take the cross bike out.

Fylde Coastal path.

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6°C, E wind, sunny and dry.
Cold with a piercing E wind. The ground is hard now so a bike with some suspension would help. There are sections where the ridges in the dyke forced me to get off and walk. It’s gorgeous here with a feeling of vast space.

After this section, I headed along the Southport sea wall to the green machines. There are only 4 that I use. Anchor points are visible in the concrete ground, at least 4 have been removed over the years. I can’t imagine them being replaced even with a local coastal funding package from the lottery fund.

DofE 4: Cannock Chase

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4.1: intro and tuition, walking with the group all day and setting up camp with them. They were fit and able, my group of all lads.

The route was on familiar ground, both from previous DofE trips, visits from my old house. I even camped at the Scout camp when I was a little lad in the 70s. There were some recurrent problems with the group who had a tendency to split through differing pace. At camp, there were many problems with kit to solve. All of that meant I didn’t get my own cooking started until 20.30.

4.2: Day Two, all groups would walk by themselves with instructors doing remote supervision. My group sorted themselves out and started working as a unified whole. They met checkpoints at expected times and completed the day. After debrief, I was convinced that they’d sorted themselves out.

DofE 3: Bristol.

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12°C, not a cloud all day, nor wind.

Gloucester Services: the only one worth 5 star rating. Teybay comes a close second but none is good enough to come third.

3.1; the camp was a chilly start in its wooded NW facing slope. Instructors met up at 8.30 and we headed over to the start in Nailsea where the kids arrived in cars. I chose groups 3 & 4 at random. The choice set the tone for the rest of the day.

Both were lively groups fortunately free from difficulty. In fact, they were really good fun. One was teaching me french which I will need for my summer expedition. The girls group made a big effort to get me to learn their names. All have been charming all day, even after I told them off for some unnecessary navigation errors. They had a tendency to natter and not to notice navigation clues. Like a scratched record, I emphasised the need for 2 or more clues for each decision. They still made some glaring errors.

It’s funny to think that I cycled down these valleys in the 90s hundreds of times, training and racing. Funny because of the places here I knew nothing about. The medieval hill fort was the best bit with its view out to sea.

3.2: remote supervision. We set checkpoints and the group’s plotted their routes after breakfast. The only real problem was early morning fog that was very dense. One of my groups soon made an error and headed north instead of East. They fixed it without intervention though. Both groups did well and finished on-time. There was a necessary discussion about splitting a group which probably happened in the confusion of many teams arriving at bottleneck checkpoints.

Finally, both groups were delightful, they were bright, optimistic and tremendous fun to spend time with. I felt priveliged to have their company for a couple of days.

Ewe turned turtle.

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10°C, brisk NW, bright sun.
Rode the RSPB route in vright sunshine. That SSW leg takes you through a field of sheep. They were all ewes, many with lambs, tiny lambs.

Then I saw one motionless, on her side. I stopped and she wriggled. She couldn’t get up. Her huge pregnant belly stopped her righting herself. Ewes can easily die like that so I got off. I walked round to her back on the downhill side right her. Now she really wriggled and kicked obviously getting distressed. Quickly with two handfuls of willy fur I turned her over and she got her feet. After only a short trot, she turned and looked back. Perhaps she thought she was a gonna.

Soon, a farmer came on a quad bike. He was grateful when I explained what happened. I did the right thing.