Distance 14.0 mile
7th July 2016
Click Here For Route Plot-a-Route
After cancelling our adventure last week it had been decided this weeks would go ahead no matter what, unless some extreme weather stopped the extreme bikers. The mornings weather didn’t bode well, that light rain and then later heavy showers , these soon cleared and it was now just overcast. Upon arriving home Darcy lever was bathed in warm evening sunshine so all looked good.
Graham arrived at our prearranged meeting point just as the weather changed again, light rain that wets you through! Last weeks adventure had been cancelled and we had missed a couple earlier in the season so we both agreed that tonight’s adventure would go ahead.
As you know we normally follow the old canals and disused railway lines but tonight I had planned a different kind of adventure, we were going somewhere famous in Bolton that neither of us had ever been to, Barrow Bridge.
We began our adventure following the route we had gone on in the adventure” Grahams New Bike” until we came to Firwood Fold. It was here we turned right along Crompton Way and passed the old site of Beloit Walmsley which was one of the oldest companies in Bolton but is now a huge housing estate. Onward from here passed the Toby Carvery and up to the junction with Blackburn Rd, up the hill past the junction with Halliwell Rd until we turned right into Moss Bank park, a place I hadn’t visited since my children were little, they’re now in their twenties.
Taking a break here , now once again in the warm sunshine of a summer evening , I worked out which way we should head for. This proved more difficult than we thought. Off up the path we went around the rear of the fair ground rides and up the hill, oops wrong way, down the hill turned left bang straight into the gates where they keep the mowing equipment, back again up and right again only to a dead end this time into a field. Eventually we found our way through to the car park , which looked like something out of a zombie movie, it hadn’t been used for some considerable time. Now we were nearly there along Barrow Bridge Rd passed the bus terminus until we came to the row of cottages with Dean brook running through the village. The village itself is very picturesque and is one of the most sort after places to live in Bolton, it has won various awards for best kept village and village in bloom (see photo).
The road continued up to the right, but we wanted to follow the path alongside the brook until we came to the infamous 63 steps. These looked daunting because we would have to carry our bikes to the top. The path we noticed continued around to the right so off we went but shortly we came to another large set of steps, here we had no choice but man up and carry our bikes up. Once at the top we came out into a field where we headed through the mud up to the farm on Walker Fold Rd, this we thought was the end of our up hill climb for the last 6 mile, but we still had a couple of hundred yards to go until we came to the Bob Smithy pub. It was now all downhill along Old Kiln Ln. We had decided on our return journey to call at another place neither of us had been to, Doffcocker lodge, once again we realised we didn’t even know that lovely areas like these were on our door step and they will require further exploration in the future. Exiting the lodge the rain had started to fall again so we decided to head straight home rather than follow original plans to go through Queens park.
Our return journey took us along passed Moor Ln bus station which is due to close shortly, being replaced by the new terminus we visited in “Game of Thrones” , from here it was only a short distance home along the old viaducts crossing st Peters way, a bit eerie as they had closed the road completely for major road works.
Arriving at mine I gave Graham his little gift I had forgotten to take with me earlier, he now set off on his way home with a smile on his face with the usual proviso to text me when he arrived home. Until our next adventure its goodnight from Graham and good night from me.
