18th July 2024
On my to meet Graham along the canal towpath I was confronted with a vast number of muddy puddles and I thought to myself I can’t believe we’re in the middle of July and it’s still wet and muddy everywhere. I had messaged Graham earlier and arranged our meeting place at Moses Gate country park or as we oldies call it Crommie Lodges. The site on one of the earliest paper mills in Lancashire built by Robert Crompton (1667–1737).
I arrived at Crommie Lodges and rode around looking for Graham but there was no sign. I checked my phone to confirm I had the correct meeting place. Now without my glasses on I incorrectly read my own message , doh .So I decided to ride to the entrance right at the top of the hill to see if he was there, still no sign, back down the hill and around the lodge, still no sign. I therefore decided to go the way Graham hopefully would have travelled, as I did I spotted him hidden behind a bush near the weir, exactly the place I had told him, but I hadnt read my message fully, properly not the best start, but at least this time I’d remembered my water bottle.
I didn’t tell Graham where we were going but I had planned a bit of route. To get to our first port of call we rode up Hall Lane past George Cox the builders , Graham informed me that they’d being going for years and just round the corner we noticed a sign that they had just celebrated 50 years in business.
Back in 2017 we had taken a similar route which had led us to the Pack Horse bridge over the railway. This is where I struggled, the bridge is very narrow and with my wide handlebars I only had centimetres either side.
This obstacle over come we soon arrived at our first stop which Graham guessed correctly, “ It’s that statue that was covered up last time “ he was right it had now been unveiled since we saw it in Natures A Wonderful Thing
The statue is in memory of Alice Thomasson , who was the only woman in Bolton to be killed in the First World War (link to more info below) https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/18980277.memorial-unique-bolton-war-hero-planned/
Now on to our next point of interest. A zebra crossing which had been constructed near where I live at the top of Smiths Road at a busy junction but there’s no path there as I was aware of , so we had to investigate. On arrival at the crossing I asked Graham if he knew why we were there, he replied “ Haven’t a clue pal “ . I told him my conundrum and he was rather excited about the fact it was new territory for us to explore.
We found the brand new path on our left and headed along it until it brought us what Graham referred to as a creepy subway going under St Peter’s Way. We stopped here and I asked Graham if he knew where our next point of call could be ? Again he hadn’t a clue , so I just said ” OK pal just follow me” he called out “Wow pal it’s like a magical mystery tour this, loving it !!”
We shortly arrived at the now Lords College , but we remember it as the Brooklyn Hotel on Green Ln. It was all gated off at the entrance. As we peered through the fence we reminisced on our last visit back in Graham, Ebay & The Not Rights . Around the corner we saw a very small fence so Graham hoped over with his bike and said “ come on pal we’ll have a look round, to be honest it doesn’t even look like it’s open” . Indeed there was rubbish scattered around, it was untidy and no sign of recent activity. It was then Graham pointed another building out, “ hey pal look at that one over the road “ puzzled I asked him “why” his reply: “your next home probably pal “. Cheeky monkey.
As we left the sorry sight behind us to continue on with our adventure we headed along the old railway line that runs from Great Lever through Bolton Hospital (Peggy Lou’s place of work) and on up to Highfield. As we rode along Graham shouted out ” Biker coming up from behind Ebay “ we both slowed down to let him pass. When I looked back I saw him, a proper scaly ,” youar alrit lads am just riding, coz gota a bike see” he mumbled to us. Well I saw the expression on Grahams face it simply said ” GET ME OUTA HERE PAL. So I set off at a lick and after a few minutes I heard Graham ” We’ve lost him pal, he was starting to give me the ebbie geebies “. We soon found ourselves heading through a housing estate looking for the way through to the footbridge over the M61 motorway.
After a short search we found it , blocked by a stile. Across the field, we could see the bridge a matter of 100m away but there was a problem. In the middle of the field was a solo cow ,or more importantly was it a BULL, from our viewpoint we couldn’t tell. Discussing this matter I asked Graham ” who due you think is the fastest runner out of us both pal ?”, not surprisingly he said me. So I volunteered to walk through the field to get a better view of the BULL. As I tentatively walked forward I spotted more COWS and according to Graham there would only be one BULL in a field. With this assumption in mind we got our bikes and rode through the field scanning around as we did, just in case. At the other side of we came to a very narrow path leading to the footbridge over the motorway , Graham commented that it didn’t look like it had been used in quite a while, probably due to the BULL in the field we thought. Soon the bridge stood before us a massive concrete structure looming large with its 3 flights of steep steps. We hauled our bikes up, sweating and panting in the humid evening air. Once on top of the bridge we paused to catch our breath, and take a look at the huge housing development being constructed on the other side and oh yeah take our selfie.
Our ordeal had only just begun though, looking down from the bridge I could see that the exit at the bottom of the steps had been fenced off. Graham wasn’t admitting defeat so easily and went down to check it out but sadly he returned a beaten man. Nothing for it then back through the field of cows. Riding back through I heard Graham shout out behind me ” QUICK EBAY THERE’S ONE CHASING US NOW” then a little giggle. ” If there was one chasing us pal, you’d definitely be in front of me by now “ I called back. Safely through the field it was now the challenge of finding an alternative route.
A quick look on Komoot and I saw a path that looked a nice short cut at least on the map anyway, how wrong was I . Yes there was a path but it was extremely overgrown but we decided it was our best option , ha ha, oh no it wasn’t. It gradually got more and more overgrown , it looked more like a jungle path than anything else but we ploughed on We’re Extreme Bikers after all. We made very slow progress , being stung by nettles, cut by branches and sharp grass , even pushing our bikes through for quite a distance but slowly we made headway until Graham exclaimed ” I can see daylight, we’ve made it pal “ . Indeed we had . Cut and bleeding with arms and legs stung by nettles, scarped by branches, thorns and god knows what else we had survived.
We emerged onto Plodder Ln and we both agreed that was Extreme Biking on another level . After a brief rest bite we headed over to Little Hulton with no real plans but just explore. As we turned off the main road we were greeted with a huge mural of Eric Cantona , the 2nd in as many weeks, this one though took the whole gable end of a building. At this point though we were unsure if we could get further along the path ahead but we continued never the less, it led us round to a small Presbyterian graveyard, which surprisingly we had visited a long time ago but Graham actually recalled it back from 2019 in Atherton ROC Nuclear Monitoring Post. Finding a bench we sat and chatted about our weekend and the disappointment of England’s loss in the Euros football . Graham had watched it in his neighbours man cave where I had watched it in a packed pub in Bolton, a fantastic experience except for the result.
As we exited the graveyard we passed very close to some bushes, then I saw Graham stop abruptly in front of me cursing, and holding his ear “ Bloody hell I feel like Donald Trump , a thorns just shot off that bush and caught me right on the ear “ I shouldn’t have laughed but I couldn’t help myself. Back on the path we made the decision to shorten our planned trip due to the time we had spent fighting through the jungle.
This took us passed a solar farm which we didn’t know even existed. We meandered through a housing estate and back up on our way home, ready for a lovely hot shower, something to eat and a good rest .
