19th April 2018
Journey Length 8.5ml
Click Here For Route Via Ride with GPS
A mini heatwave was forecast for tonight, so on this premise I had contacted Graham via WhatsApp ( yes even us old folk move with the times ) to ask if he was up for our first adventure of the year. This would be our earliest outing yet. A resounding “yes, was just thinking the same” came the reply. So it was green for go, now all I had to do was think of somewhere for us to visit. Then I remembered watching a old re run of a TV programme about Fred Dibnah a famous local steeplejack who had quite a career as a TV presenter with his catch phrase “did ya like that?” . During the programme I Googled Fred and found out he was buried in Tonge Cemetery which is close to where I live, so with this in mind I thought it would be fitting to try and locate his grave, then follow on to his statue in the town centre, “sounds like a plan” I thought. Arrangements were made that Graham would meet me at mine. Now i was ready and set off to our normal meeting point at gorses Rd, arriving first i waited, spotting Graham riding up towards me and then right past, he hadn’t seen me or had he, expecting him to suddenly turn around and “gotcha” but he didn’t. I eventually caught him up, his excuse was the sun was in his eyes, so now our adventure could begin. He didn’t want to know what my plan was so it would be a surprise
- Fred Dibnahs Grave
We set off through Leverhulme Park towards Tonge Cemetery crossing the newly refurbished bridge and down to the cemetery. Once there I said to Graham “ your mission tonight if you choose to accept it is to find Fred Dibnah’s grave ” the mission accepted we set off. After a short time we came upon Fred’s grave to pay our respects. We then rode up past the old chapel now looking like it is only used for storage. Going from here we crossed over Bury Rd up Hypatia Street and missed our path to take us toward Tonge Moor Rd, back tracking and some head scratching we found it and were back on track. Eventually we came out on to Tonge Moor Rd at the rear of Matalan. Now we headed to the town centre but we took the long route via Union Rd a area we had never visited. Along here we came across numerous factories and units we didn’t even know existed and passed a large electrical substation. Coming to the end of Union Rd I noticed a path leading somewhere so we followed it, and it led along the banks of the river Tonge where we came upon a couple of geese. The path emerged on to Longson St behind the arches and we were surprised to see an immaculate kept bowling green, this turned out to be Darbyshire Park which we didn’t even know existed.
Turning onto Folds Rd heading towards the statue of Fred in the town centre in front of the old steam engine. Stopping off to take an obligatory photo, we were surprised to find a largish group of people all taking photos of the statue, as we waited our turn, I told Graham what I had in store for the next part of our adventure. Once the photos had been taken we set off to our next point of call which was to be the old bus station but as we rode around Le Mans crescent we thought it would be amusing to stop off at the location of one of the scenes from our favourite series “Peaky Blinders”. This we duly did with a selfie “by order of the Peaky feckin Blinders” to the amusement of passers by.
Now it was just a short ride to the site of the old Moor Ln bus station for a quick photo before circling around Bolton Market and on towards our final destination the new Bus and Rail Exchange on the corner of Newport St and Great Moor St, which was the site of the previous adventure “The Lost Glasses” back in July last year. The exchange is now finished and it does look impressive even if we couldn’t get into the Cycle Hub cycle parking area , it is £10/year fee but you do get an electronic fob. This was the last of our places to visit on our adventure, but I had one last surprise in store, asking Graham if he was up for it he dully accepted and of we set to locate a path I had seen on a map leading from Raikes Ln to the top of Smiths Rd.
To get to where we thought the start of the path was we had to get to the viaduct over St Peters Way. Whilst on our way we had to negotiate the lights at the junction of Trinity St and Manchester Rd. it was there while waiting to cross we saw some idiot in an Audi use the bus lane to under cut another car and then turn right up Trinity St, what an absolute arse.
Once on the viaduct we found the gate to get us down onto the route of the old Bolton Bury canal, but getting through the gate proved a little tricky, it was a kissing gate with a large spring on it and as I tried to push it open with my bike it fought back. Now Mr Impatient couldn’t wait and decided to lift his bike over ,nearly taking me out in the process. After a few choice words (tongue in cheek of course) we set off in the direction of Raikes Ln, passing some unsavoury characters as we did so. Upon arriving on Raikes Ln we soon located the entrance to the path and off we set passing an uprooted tree that had taken half the manhole with it. Now karma is a funny thing and after a distance down the path we kept coming upon dips in the path caused by water running down the hillside, it was at one of a large one of theses Graham dismounted and proceeded to push his bike, only to slip on a stone and nearly fall flat on his arse, much to my amusement.
The path did indeed did bring us to the top of Smiths Rd, where after a quick chat we parted company until our next adventure with Graham shouting back to me “ remind me to tell you story of the knitting needles”, now I’m intrigued but will have to wait til next time I see him so I will keep you posted in our next adventure blog.
