30th July 2026
Click Here To See Our Route & Photos
The dry fine hot weather continued and we hadn’t had any significant rainfall now for months, that was great for us but not so good for the plants and grass. Peggy Lou was complaining about the state of our lawn due to the lack of rain and her hanging baskets were in need of constant watering. I digress tho, it’s Thursday and once again adventure night. Where should we go this week I pondered earlier in the week, one after another I thought about various places , then I talked myself out of it, too far, been recently, nothing interesting, not got time and so on , that was until I arrived at our destination for this evening, Barrow Bridge via Moss Bank Park.
I’d arrived home late due to an accident involving two cars on Radcliffe road. Graham was sat waiting for me when I eventually arrived home. Now whether it was a sixth sense or what but I had prepared everything for my bike that morning so luckily it was simply jump in the saddle and off we go. We commented on how lucky we had been over the past weeks with the fine weather so once again it was no jumpers required as we set off towards Bolton over the Darcy Lever Viaduct which used to carry the old Bury Bolton Railway line from here we could see the old buttresses of the long demolished aqueduct that carried the Manchester Bolton & Bury canal over the river below.
At Manchester Rd we waited at the pelican crossing but because the traffic was stationary Graham took the decision to cross before the green man lit up . When I caught up with him he turned and asked “ suppose I’m in trouble now ?“ I replied “ yes that’s dangerous pal “ ,he gave me a guilty look that also said he was sorry. Not long after we caught a wonderful aroma wafting in the air coming from the Shiraz restaurant on Great Moor St , it certainly made us want to stop off and enjoy the culinary delights but we’re on an adventure so it’ll have to wait.
We entered Queens Park off spa Rd and spotted a couple of lads carrying their skateboards onto the grass football pitches, Graham said jokingly “ they’ll need off Road tyres if they’re riding on there pal”. Shortly after we came upon our first hill of the evening, up through the park. We made it to the top successfully and then dropped down to the duck ponds ,here we paused to get our breath back. Graham pointed out the duck feeding station at the side of the pond , he informed me , whether this is true or not there is actually a little man in there handing out the bird food. He then continued that actually he wouldn’t have minded that job, but being well over 6 foot tall he thought it would be a little cramped. He said it would be a great idea for Ant and Dec to do something like that on their Saturday evening show where they would hide in the duck feeder.
It was here I think Grahams guilt of the pelican crossing incident got the better of him . “ bet my face is plastered all over Facebook now , I’ll be the most wanted AA man in Britain “ somehow I doubted that but you never know,. Then seeing that I’d forgotten my water bottle Graham offered me a drink from his saying ” you can have a drink of my water pal, but there might be a bit of snot on it” , unsurprisingly I politely declined his kind offer.
We now progressed up through the side streets off Chorley New Rd until we came to the Bolton Steam Museum (sadly it was closed) located near Morrison’s supermarket on Chorley Old Road. Graham pointed out the stunning architecture of the building with the lovely brickwork unlike the buildings that they throw up these days.
We left the steam museum behind us and then continued our way up Ivy Road until we came to the second major hill of the day, Cunliffe Brow, here we had to dismount our bikes partway up due to the uneven surface and steepness of the hill. It was then another slight incline that took us up eventually to Moss Bank Park, Graham moaned a little, “ there’s a lot of hills tonight pal”. Unfortunately I knew there were more to come but I decided to keep that to myself.
We skirted the outskirts of the park as we made our way along Moss Lane and up Barrow Bridge Road were we paused at the Moss Bank Park Main Attractions Car Park ,here I enquired if Graham had any idea where we were going on tonight’s adventure he just simply pointed to the sign and said “ the sign kind of gives it away pal “ This though wasn’t our destination so I suggested we carry on up the hill . A little further on we arrived at Barrow Bridge chimney which is actually for sale and we believe some plans had be put in to make it into a café . Graham then pointed out that he wouldn’t like to pay for the flue that would have to go to the top of the chimney for the café stove, I must admit that probably would cost a few bob. (expesive)
After a quick look around we continued our journey up Barrow Bridge Rd where we spotted some unusual sights. Firstly there was a poster outside the Barrow Bridge mission that was a play on Heinz ketchup advert and across the brook in front of the cottages was a stone built hole in the banking , we’d no idea what its purpose was, maybe some kind of drainage for the cottages but it’d obviously been there for a very long time and there was a large tree growing above it and we wondered how either things were still standing. There are also the very old style street lamps that must look amazing on a winter’s evening.
As we stood taking in the stunning beauty of the area a man walking is dog approached us and said“ it’s like being in a Fairy Tale here “ . We certainly agreed. He then went on to explain that he’d only just moved here from Salford a couple of weeks ago , “ I’ve swapped police sirens for the sound of horses hooves “ he said with a smile . Graham and myself looked at one another and were thinking the same thing, what a very lucky chap . A little further up the road we pulled to one side to let a car pass. As It did Graham said “ some people are just ignorant, didn’t even acknowledge us ” I then corrected him telling him that he’d thanked me as he passed and I explained that he had probably heard of your misdemeanor regarding the pelican crossing so therefore you didn’t warrant any thanks. Graham just looked at me with his silly grin.
We carried on until we came to the set of 63 stone steps that were once used by workers to get to the higher local works. Here there’s a sign, Welcome to High Scores Clough , we took the dirt path up the very steep hill towards Bolton Links golf club. The path was part dirt and part cobbles and was extremely steep so once again we ended up having to push our bikes. Graham was now getting sick of the sight of hills. Part way up we were passed by a cyclist coming down , we both politely said hello as he passed, Graham then said “ well he was a grumpy old sod didn’t even say hello “ , this time in Graham’s defence I genuinely think the guy was just a grumpy old git .
Then it was our turn to descend the hill , we hurtled down to the base and turned sharply left down , as Graham put it, a rather eerie path under the canopy of the trees . Once we reached the end of the path at the base of the second set of steps we turned around and headed back home via Moss Bank Park. In the park we took the opportunity to find a bench for our usual catch up of the events week . In my case a trip down to Whetstone in Leicestershire with Peggy Lou to my daughter and son in laws for a lovely Family BBQ. Graham had visited the San Marino restaurant and also the Horseshoe pub to celebrate Val and his 37th wedding anniversary, which I had sadly completely forgotten about so I apologised and offered him Peggy Lou’s and myself’s best wishes. I then immediately entered the date into my diary . We chatted for a while about the joys of getting old and how our memory isn’t as good as it used to be . Musing over the things we’d forget, mainly everything our wives had asked us to do ( turning the washing machine on , Graham). We then took our selfie and we remarked about the fact we looked like something out of the sci fi movie MEN IN BLACK with our black shirts and cool shades on.
It should have been a simple ride home but in my infinite wisdom I decided to take us on a short cut through Captains Clough, this however proved to be a mistake, I took a wrong turn and we ended up on a narrow path at the top of a steep banking down to the brook, so once again we had to push our bikes along. After that drama we stuck to the roads and were soon back in Darcy Lever . As we crossed the viaduct on our return we debated a couple of points. The first one was Why are Potholes in the road actually call POTHOLES and secondly what is the difference between , roads, streets, avenues, drives and closes when they are all basically just roads.
Here’s our conclusions:
The true origin of the word pothole is just linguistics, according to Brinton. “Pot is an Old English word meaning ‘a deep vessel.’” And hole is from the Old English hol, which means “hollow place.” Per the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), pothole is formed by compounding the two. Its as simple as that (courtesy of Readers Digest)
The basic differences in road names comes down to their original purpose, shape, and surroundings: roads normally connect two points, streets have buildings on both sides, avenues are wide and sometimes tree-lined, closes are dead ends, and drives twist around natural features .
With those conundrums seemingly resolved it was time to go our separate ways and as always to message each other when we got home.
