26th April 2018
Journey Length 15.9ml
Click Here For Route Via Ride with GPS
They say history sometimes repeats itself, this was nearly the case tonight. I had arranged to meet Graham at Moses Gate where they are repairing the railway bridge that has now been going on for several months. I had travelled along Manchester Rd and as I approached Moses Gate I failed to spot Graham parked up on the opposite side of the road until the last minute, but unlike Graham last week I did notice him.
Now earlier on in the day we had been in contact about tonight’s adventure, to assess whether we should go ahead, the weather forecast wasn’t brilliant with strong gusty winds. At one point we had agreed to postpone, but later in the day Graham got in touch to say the weather had improved and did I think we should go, the wind was also due to die down. The adventure was a go, the weather had improved and more so the wind had dropped during the afternoon.
At our rendezvous point we were both a little out of breath “ that bloody wind ehh” Graham remarked “yeah you said it would drop so we’d be on for tonight “ I replied. “ I know ,but I told Val that I wasn’t going and she called me a girl, I wasn’t having that, so here we are” he said laughingly.
So now we set off leaving behind the now derelict Moses Gate pub the scene of many a good night listening to live music with a beer or two. Over the bridge with its newly built wall we rode through Farnworth Park if you can call it that, its just a shadow of its former self. We were heading for our destination Hulton Park estate, which had recently been in the news as a controversial golf course and luxury housing development was looming over this lovely piece of countryside. Our route took us up a long climb along Plodder Ln. Graham leading the way up to Watergate Ln where we needed to turn left. The wind was right in our faces, as Graham had taken the lead I tucked in right behind him in his slip stream, which made my ride easier if even if the view was a little off putting.
Once we turned left down towards the motorway we came to the roundabouts, where we mounted the footpath ( for safety reasons only ). At the second roundabout the sight of the sprawling industrial development was amazing and then I spotted a Costa and the Pine Tree pub, the thing I dint see was the now fast approaching metal road sign. As an extreme biker we had trained for eventualities as these and with a quick tug on the handle bars I was passed it safely.
We stopped off to take a photo of the sprawling Aldi distribution centre, Graham saying how hard he had found it coming up Plodder Ln, I agreed even though it was a hell lot easier for me being behind him, although I failed to mention that at the time.
Now we wanted to explore this area , its normally our cup of tea as its all new but it is all built on the old opencast mining area where Graham in his youth used to ride his off road motorbike, back in the day. There a large number of units on the estate including Komatsu, Amazon as well as Aldi. As we rode along we came to another construction site, this was massive, whilst we looked into the distance we could see some buildings in the far distance all lit up, Graham said he thought it was Blackburn, now I’ve not got a degree in geography but I was sure it was Manchester and most definitely not Blackburn as we were facing south but Graham took some convincing even to the point of Google Maps. Further exploration revealed even more construction sites, it will be truly a huge industrial estate when or if its ever finished, we actually saw a couple of signs saying there was future projects offering 1 and 1.5 million sq ft complexes, amazing!
We made our way back up to the roundabout on the A6 we turned left once again riding into the wind but this time side by side, shortly we saw a path on our left for us to explore, this turned out to be Cutacre Country Park, somewhere neither of us had ever heard of, so naturally we went to explore.
Click for Link To Cutacre Page
The path was hard gravel and was quite easy to ride along but in places it was uneven and rutted and this became a problem for Graham, as I rode in front I spotted a large crow to our left pointing this out to Graham , he took his eye off the path and soon behind me I heard “whoa whoa nearly” as the camber of the path took him towards the ditch and just recovering in time. Next we saw was a kestrel hovering just in front but just as I was taking its photo it drcided it wanted to fly away looking no doubt for better prey.
We continued along the path down the hill passing an old barn which I decided on our way back would warrant a good photo opportunity. The path continued for some considerable distance and we soon found ourselves at Engine Ln. If we had continued along here it would have taken us totally in the wrong direction so we turned back following our route in reverse. When we arrived back at the barn there was a group of yobbos hanging around so with our safety in mind we didn’t stop, and continued back up to the main road. On the car park we assessed our situation, we didn’t really want to continue to Hulton Park, time was now against us. Graham spotted a footbridge across the road that went over the motorway, that would be our next objective. We got to the bridge, it wasn’t conducive to crossing with bikes the steps were numerous and incredibly steep, but this didn’t deter us and we were soon riding up through a farmers field, now this is where Graham had a memory “ I hope there’s no bull in this field “ relating to one of our previous adventures, thankfully there wasn’t and we soon exited onto Plodder Ln at the site of large house, that had at some time been renovated but now was empty and in a very poor state.
Rather than just ride down Plodder Ln I took Graham up Slack Fold Ln, now this was an eye opener, it is a lovely country lane, but some scally not rights have used it for fly tipping , a total disgrace but unfortunately it is becoming more common it really does get my goat ! ( right now down off my soap box ).
Now it was all down hill Lever Edge Ln then Green Ln to its junction with Manchester Rd, it was here we parted company. This time I remembered Peggy Lou’s instructions from last week ” text me when you’re on your way back so I can have your tea ready” , what a woman!
It was here once again I heard Graham shout “ ahh remind me to tell you the knitting needle story” and so the saga continues alas.
