Lost
16th August 2012
Journey Length 11.3m
CLICK HERE FOR ROUTE MAP VIA STRAVA
It looked as though a hot and humid evening would have an adverse effect on our adventure tonight, but as you will later see it turned out to be real adventure indeed.
Due to the weather we had decided to take tonight’s adventure at a more leisurely pace than normal, with the intention of travelling a shorter distance than normal. We headed along the Bolton arm of the canal towards the basin at Hall Lane, here we poised for a few minutes watching a bloke fishing with little success. We then went down the hill towards Moses Gate Country Park, along the path over the steel bridge and past the weir, turning left and then between the lodges covered in lilies.
From here we went up the very steep hill up to Darley Park and turned left and down through Farnworth cemetery, passing the old Cemetery Lodge, here we turned left down Cemetery Rd and then along what we called the Yellow Brick road when we were kids, basically just a cobbled road come path towards the north side of the park. We circled around this path and returned back up to Cemetery Rd. From there we went along until we came to the sharp hairpin turn that took us down to the opposite side of Wilsons bridge which we had visited the previous week, approximately 50m from the bridge we took the path to our right, this path like a few others had been cleared in some parts of a lot of the vegetation that had overgrown and had made it difficult to follow some of our route. The path contained numerous flights of steps which led us up the hill to Church Rd just after the bridge crossing St Peters way. Left along Church road we followed it until its end from where we took a narrow path down a steep hill, where Graham nearly came a cropper getting his front wheel stuck in a rut and nearly going over the handle bars. We continued along until we came to a “footpath crossing” across the Bolton – Manchester railway line. Looking to our left we could see the tunnel that leads through to Farnworth station, these tunnels were commonly known as “The Wind Tunnels” because when we were children, kids would stand in theses pressed up against the walls whilst the trains thundered past. Now though we took great care, aware of the dangers of the railway. As we prepared to climb the hill on the opposite side we were passed by a train heading at speed towards Bolton.
The path leading up from here was very densely covered with all kinds of vegetation and had obviously not been cleared like some previous paths, as we descended down the other side the vegetation became even denser and the path itself disappeared, but we did eventually emerge at the side of Stoneclough FCs ground on Brook St with Grahams bike looking like it was camouflaged.
We thought that we would take a look around the Europa trading estate across the way, and it was here we found a path leading up to a new housing estate that stands on the site of the old Kearsley power station which was closed in 1980 and its 5 cooling towers were demolished in May 1985. We wound our way around the estate and came out onto Hulme Rd where we turned left back towards Ringley Rd and on towards Kearsley. At Bridge St we turned right over the river Irwell and up past Kearsley Mill and up to the path which ran parallel with the canal and crossed over the river Irwell via the pack-horse bridge and climbed up the steep hill past the stair locks and along Boscow Rd.
Due to the hot weather it was decided as a treat we would call for some refreshments at a local pub. We decided that the best choice would be the Queens pub on Bradley Ln. We travelled along Mytham Rd left up towards Chapel St and then right, along Ainsworth Rd leading us up to Tong Rd and Bradley Ln to our refreshment area.
Whilst sat having our refreshments we saw a signpost for a public footpath that ran alongside the pub. It turned out to be Bradley Fold Rd. As we went along the un-surfaced road we came across the 2 biggest puddles I had ever seen, slowly through the puddles not knowing what obstacles lay beneath we came out onto Browns Rd, here we took a path off to the right and were now in unexplored territory.
The path ended at a housing estate and we took a guess and turned left thinking this may lead us to where we should have been heading, neither of us had a real clue where we were and by now the light was beginning to fade. Unsure of our position we did a U turning back down the road hopefully noticing somewhere familiar, this though wasn’t to be and we came to the conclusion we were lost, so we retraced our path and by spotting a bright yellow “Triumph Stag” (old sports car not the animal) we thought the next left would lead us the right way, Oh no wrong again so again we did a u turn, then taking the second left turning and realised this was the road we had come down originally and spotted the path we needed to take, but yet that wasn’t the end, we had missed the turning on the pathway that we needed and were now heading in completely the wrong direction. Another about turn and we soon picked up the right path and were on our way home. By now though the light was really fading and we hoped we could soon find a landmark, and this we did when we came across the Starmount Villa which led us onto Browns Rd and on our way home. With some distance still to go, darkness falling all around , cars with their lights on and us not being equipped with lights we had to take a cautious route up along Marsh Rd then Booth Rd and back home. Not bad for taking it easy on a little adventure, and we felt the area near Bradley Fold ( which we now know to be Blackshaw Brook Woods ) required some more exploration, hopefully next week.
