An excursion out this week sees us along the Salford arm of the canal, beginning at Little Lever heading to the locks at Nob End around the basin and along the canal heading towards Ringley. This is a well used route following the canal which is in water until it ends at Ringley locks where it has been filled in, we climb up and cross Kearsley Road. Down Fold Road passing the Horse Shoe pub and pass the water treatment works and continuing this week along Red Rock Lane and onto Philips Park Rd until we come to the M60 motorway, here we turn left up the hill along Philips Park Rd after about 400mt we turned right through the gate posts along North Lodge which too us down over the M60 into Philips Park.
At a fork in the road we bore right which lead us to a car park but off to the left there was a small path which led us down past the stables and then to the formal gardens and conservatory, which is sadly now boarded up. The gardens looked to be still quite well maintained. After a short trip around the gardens we followed the small path to the left of the gardens which led us through the trees along a very narrow dirt path which brought us out at a lovely little spot looking over Drinkwater Park. Descending down a steep narrow path Ebay came a cropper he skidded when he braked at the bottom of the hill and went head first over the handle bars slid down the hill about 15ft and came to rest and the was then hit by the bike which followed him down (sorry no pics), with the pedal slamming down on his thigh (ouch !!!). We came out on the cycle path and turned right heading back to Clifton and 13 arches aqueduct.
We headed up the steep hill towards the M60 and crossed the bridge going back along the old railway cutting, by now Ebay was struggling with his injured leg but managed to continue, and after about 400 yd we dropped down to Philips Park road which led us along to Red Rock lane and then Kearsley Rd on the bridge over the river Irwell and then we descended down the bank onto the canal heading home.
This route had rather more hills than we normally encounter and made the ride more demanding but didn’t take away any of the enjoyment. Travelling back to the top of the locks at Nob End we came across the swans which we had seen months before now with their cygnets almost fully grown, a splendid sight to behold.
