British Summer!!!!

5^th July 2012

Journey Length 3.0ml

After a long break due to holidays, bad weather and catching up with my brother up from Stevenage, this week we continued our adventures. The typical unpredictable British weather had already forced one adventure postponement and this evenings forecast didn’t look promising. The cloud was beginning to build up and we were aware that there had been extreme weather all over the country with flood warnings nearly everywhere, but the sun was still shining so we set off. We went out along the canal towards Bolton, but on the opposite side from the towpath, past the winding hole and out onto Melrose road, left along Worcester Road, Newbury Road, across the field to where the canal now ends after the aqueduct at Hall Lane was demolished in 1950.From here we descended down the hill into Moses Gate Country Park.

We then crossed over the bridge over the river Croal and then followed the river towards Bolton passed the weir in the park which obviously had seen a lot of water due to the recent very heavy rainfall, we continued looking for the weir that had recently collapsed in the bad weather. Unfortunately we were unsure where this was, so we retraced our route but instead of crossing the bridge we found a small path along the river which was extremely muddy and not wide enough or suitable for bikes so we continued on foot. The path became even more treacherous further along, Graham not suffering from a fear of heights unlike Ebay continued a little further, then the heavens opened and down came the rain.

Soon the rain was coming down so hard it was difficult to see the opposite side of the river bank. Graham soon arrived back at the bikes but about 6ft away he slipped and nearly tumbled down into the river, just managing to save himself with a tree branch, damaging his shoulder in the process, but this didn’t stop him from riding back up to the canal and along the towpath (this IS extreme biking) to base to get dried off and get a brew. Hopefully the weatther will improve so we can continue our adventures.