Saturday 30th August.
Both Sheila and I are carrying injuries. Sheila has had a sore back and I have a swollen knee. It has stopped us walking much recently. I decided that if we were going to join fellow blogger Martin on his Greater Manchester Ringway trail walk stage 11, we needed to at least do a short test walk.
So off to Littleborough we went. It very nearly didn't happen as Sheila forgot to bring her railcard and had to run home to get it. We made it to the station platform just as the train pulled in. If we had missed it we would have had to wait another hour.
Arriving in Littleborough, the first thing we did was have breakfast in the Coffee on the Corner cafe. I must say it was splendid and reasonably priced.
Coffee on the corner cafe in Littleborough.
Then it was back to the station to pick up the stage 11 route. We met a gent who was wearing clogs! A very rare sight these days. He says he has always wore clogs and he bought the ones he had on in 2019, made to measure. He says they are very comfy but his podiatrist insisted that he had insoles fitted. He said they killed his feet so doesn't use the insoles now.
The Clog man.
From the railway station we went through an underpass, crossed a very busy main road onto the Rochdale canal towpath. It was good to see the canal was pretty full here, whereas at home the canal is totally empty.
Rochdale Canal.
This section of the canal is quite pretty with numerous old but well maintained properties to look at.
The lock house at lock 48.
Spot the benchmark on bridge 49.
There was a part view of what I suspect is Pike House. (I could be wrong).
Then a little further along we encountered our first of three completely closed footpaths which we were to take across the railway line. It seems that a large reservoir is being built underground and it looks like the paths will be closed for quite some time.
The construction site that has closed the footpaths, meaning the GM Ringway stage 11 has to be diverted.
Quite appropriate under the circumstances.
Back on the right route we were met with the sign "Beware Bull in field". We didn't see it here but we did see one later. We had our first upward path but it soon levelled out passing down what seemed to be an old green lane which led to some lovely houses and old mills.
The route exits onto Calderbrook Road which we take for a short distance before turning off and picking up a footpath onto Clough Moor. It's quite a steep route but it gives fantastic views across to Blackstone Edge and the White House, it was here that we encountered the bull and a herd of cows. We skirted round them and headed for a steel gate which was a heavy lifting type.
The bull is sat behind the first black cow.
At this point I had to decide if to go on further or make a detour back towards Littleborough. The weather forecast made the decision easy. It was going to get stormy so we headed off the tops.
We passed a farm called Lake View. We looked for the lake but couldn't see one. Strange name.
The tractor in the farm was a Ford 7840.
As we headed down hill from Lake View farm we came across this architectural mystery. Any ideas?
It was dark inside and we didn't have a torch. Was it a well? I don't know.
The frontage of Hare Hill Mill, now accommodation.
We got back to the railway station with 3 minutes to spare to find that our train was delayed 20 minutes which meant that we missed our next connection. When we got to Rochdale we had an hour wait so we decided to get the bus home.
8km in total.
