16th August 2018
Journey Length 19.8ml
Click Here For Route Via Ride with GPS
No Trees were harmed in the writing of this Blog
After the last few weeks adventures around Bolton I looked for somewhere else to explore and found it in Clarence Park in Bury. I text Graham checking we were still on for tonight’s adventure and had he heard of the park, he replied yes and no. so that was sorted we were off to Clarence Park.
As many of our regular readers will know when we visit the Bury side of the area we always meet at the Meccano bridge at Nob End, so today was the ideal opportunity to take our selfie there, a couple of knobs at Nob End.
I met Graham and arranged to take the selfie but Graham was having trouble with his helmet “ keeps making my ears stick out pal, wait a sec while I tuck my ears in”. I should have known now that today’s adventure was going to be a more than usual daft one.
Selfie taken we were on our way along the newly surfaced Bury arm of the canal. It wasn’t long before we were quite happily riding side by side chatting away about one thing and another before the subject turned to work. Graham was having a bit of a bad time at work with one thing another, like us all I suppose really but being a mate I listened to his woes with a tender ear. I decided it was time to lighten the conversation a little and proceeded to tell Graham about a young lady at work who thought incorrectly that the name of a customer was “John Thomas”. Which became a bit of a joke at work.For those who are unaware this name is also the slang name of a man’s willy, this made us both chuckle and therefore had the desired effect.
Soon we came to a gathering of ducks sat on the canal side, so we stopped to take a photo when Graham asked “ wonder what they taste like, if they are like duck from Chinese” . I answered “ they’ll taste like duck mate , a ducks a duck “ . Now this is when it got personal. Grahams wife Val and myself where both brought up in terraced houses in the same street in Farnworth , which Graham thought was the back of beyond because we didn’t even have central heating and all we ate was tripe and pigeon pie. He takes great delight in giving us both a bit of stick about this, but its all light hearted humour ( now whether Val takes it the same way I’m not sure, watch your back Graham).
We were almost at the bridge at Water St Radcliffe when we came upon a fallen tree on the canal towpath blocking our route. As extreme bikers we care about our environment and the safety of others, so Graham attempted to move the obstruction, much to my amusement, to say the tree was still there on our return journey would be an understatement. Once we had negotiated the fallen tree we made good progress to the end of the canal.
We needed to head towards Bury centre so we turned left up the steep hill to turn right over the Irwell river along the Daisyfield Greenway, we needn’t have put all the effort in if we had simply carried straight on,The map was checked and we passed the railway sidings we last saw on our adventure “Ebay Struggles On” in May 2017.It was here we spotted a car parked up near the crossing with a couple obviously enjoying one another’s company, if yo get my drift.
We now had to negotiate 3 busy main roads including Peel Way which isn’t a thing we as extreme bikers relish but to get to our goal we had to do it. As we rode up through the centre I had a very silly and childish thought. I slowed down and much to Grahams astonishment proceeded to ask a woman pedestrian if she knew where “John Thomas St ” was? knowing full well there wasn’t one. “ Sorry I don’t “ , she replied . I rode on chuckling to myself like a teenager ,hearing Graham behind me “you found that one funny didn’t ya pal , ha ha“.
In the town centre we came upon the statue of Robert Peel the founder of the modern Police force. Once at Peel Way we once again checked the map, not knowing exactly where we where.” We need to be up near Woodfeild Retail park mate “ I said “ that’s it over the way” Graham replied. Impressed, I asked “ wow how do you know that ?” “ Its on that huge sign over there “ he pointed out, much to my amusement.
The next turning we needed to make was to be on our left and after some map reading and scouring for street signs we eventually found it and were soon at our destination for the evening , Clarence Park. We entered the park and spotted some nice wood and metal park benches. I noticed that it had a number on ,“2004”, I idiotically said to Graham “ wow this must be a big park, this bench is number 2004”. “ its not its number, it’ll be when it was made “ he corrected me. Ahh well I nearly had him, but as we rode around I couldn’t help pointing out that stupidly they had numbered all their benches with the same number “2004”!!
We now rode up to the “Lido”. Now as i recall a lido is an open air swimming pool but unfortunately this was just a small lake, Graham commenting it was a bit boring .As we rode I kept stopping to take the obligatory photos with Graham screeching to a halt some way past , he still hasn’t got his brakes fixed. From here we rode up to the woods and found a lovely dirt track leading right through the woods, in fact it is made up of a number of words separated by small gates. One of these was a Butterfly Woods, where Graham pondering “ wonder if this gate is to keep the butterflies in” OMG !!. The track led us on a circular tour of the woods back to the Lido, here we stopped with Graham informing me Val had asked him not to be late back this week, so to avoid him getting a telling off we set off on our homeward journey retracing our route, but this wasn’t the end, not by far. As we rode back down Hornby St a car was pulling out and stopped part way to let a car passed just as I got to it, I stopped gesturing for the car to continue to pull out, as he did he thanked me and went on his way, Graham now caught me up after being about 30mt behind me “ bloody hell pal did he cut you up, you okay ?” I explained what had happened and Graham said “blinking heck how different things look from a different perspective” how true.
We noticed as we rode home a large and unusual clock tower and on further investigation we found it to be a memorial to a well respected surgeon Walter Whitehead presented to Bury by his brother Henry. As we admired the tower Graham came out with one of his gems “ do you think we could climb up the outside pal ? “ , ahh well..
Now on our way home we went over a small bridge over the river Irwell where we noticed a sign No Fishing Without a Permit . Then another Graham statement “ why would you want to fish in that river ! ” replying I said “ because its where the fish live ” ha ha . Now without further ado we set off back along the canal ready for our teas, commenting in unison that this cobbled part seemed longer on the way back, probably because we were now both tired and riding into a headwind. We eventually arrived back at the Meccano bridge where Graham nearly came a cropper. There is a very large wooden stump in the centre on one side of the bridge and who nearly rode straight into it , yep after almost 20 miles of extreme biking he nearly had it. On the way home the battery on my phone had died and therefore told Graham when I was home I would text him as soon as it was charged, but I went for a shower first before texting, so there was a delay .Grahams reply was touching “ Oh that’s good. Was a little worried then”. Nice one pal.
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