5th September 2019
Journey Length 6.8ml
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September is now upon us with it the shortening daylight hours and unfortunately for the extreme bikers it means we are nearing the end of our Thursday night adventures we in fact may only have one more left before the end of our season. Sat in our living room the other evening Peggy Lou and myself were watching the evening light fade in our garden, commenting that this was now the end of summer, it was only 8.30pm and it was dark.
Now with this in mind I had planned a shortened adventure for tonight, around Little Lever taking in the site of the old Creams Paper Mill. I arranged to meet Graham at the Meccano Bridge, I decided to ride along the filled in canal through the gravel pits at Darcy Lever. The path here was almost indistinguishable from the shrubbery, nature had really begun to take over. Once over Hall Ln it was up the hill to the canal with its newly resurfaced pathway. It was along here I came across a couple of swans, one of which was more photogenic than the other. As I neared the Meccano Bridge I saw the the old barrier on the towpath had gone, replaced with a new and much better bollard.
Graham was sat waiting on the forms at Meccano Bridge, I rode down at speed skidding in the dirt as I stopped in front of him. I joined him on the bench for a quick reveal of our plans for this evening. He was keen for us to get off, as he stood up he broke wind exclaiming “ Ohh I seem to have done a little pump “, I pointed out that my skid mark in the dirt might not be the only one now, but he reassured me that it was.
We set off and were soon descending the overgrown road down to the site of the old Creams Paper Mill. Nature has now began to reclaim the site but we did manage to come across a couple of the old buildings that are still standing. One of which ran over the old inlet water way for the mill, so Graham went to explore, and finding a path at the rear of the building , suggested we explore it. This was easier said than done, the roof of the building had collapsed and the floor was just a couple of girders, nevertheless we succeeded in getting over and onto the path, in hindsight this wasn’t one of our better ideas. The path wasn’t suitable for riding so we ended up pushing our bikes for much of it. Soon we were at the weir at the beginning of the inlet channel. As we prepared to negotiate our crossing I heard a shrill scream with Graham jumping around, “Ahh what the hell are them !!” seeing something on his jumper he thought were creepy crawlies, in fact they turned out just to be some seeds that had stuck to him.
Up the path we went slipping and sliding about, having to push the bikes at times. Shortly the path disappeared , replaced with a vague outline of the remnants of a path. We descended a rather steep but very slippery hill and as we rounded some trees we were confronted by a gulley, we couldn’t back track as we wouldn’t be able to get back up the hill we had just descended, so we had no choice but to push on. The opposite bank was treacherous taking ages to negotiate.
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Once we had successfully completed this we were confronted by another hill. Managing to slip and slide to the top we came to a steep slope down, but this was also banked over towards the river below. It looked almost impassable and at one point we were contemplating scaling the wall above us up to the canal, but this would have been a very hard climb with bikes, so we didn’t attempt it. Graham went first down the hill but slipped and fell, I waited behind knowing full well if I attempted it now, I would end up crashing him to him. After what seemed an eternity we were down and up the other side, only to be confronted by much of the same. Now we thought we must be almost at Ladyshore, so we were just about to continue down when I spotted a set of wooden steps just above us in the distance. The climb up to the steps was again slippery and took much longer than if the surface were dry, but make it we did and upwards on to the canal towpath some 200m short of the road down to Ladyshore.
Due to the vast amount of time it had taken us to negotiate the last 500m we were well behind time . So we had to change our plans and crossed over the canal and up Ladyshore Rd looking for our objective, a ginel that would lead us through to Dingle reservoir and back down to the canal. Halfway up the road there was a van turning around to go back up the hill ,so we patiently waited to let him go first so we wouldn’t hold him up on the narrow lane. As the van passed me Graham asked “Did he thank you” pal “No” I replied, “ Ignorant sod” we both said together, it doesn’t cost nothing to use manners.
We managed to find the ginel that would lead us in a roundabout way to the canal, but as per usual, things went a little astray. We ended up in a field of long grass, with little or no sign of a path. Cautiously we pushed our bikes to the far side of the field hoping to find an exit, this proved unsuccessful, so we hatched a plan to follow the fence towards the main road in the distance .It was whilst doing this we spotted a woman walking her dog. We politely stopped her and asked for directions, now over the years we have been given some rather strange directions , but these were among the strangest yet, “ Follow the fence line and through some bushes and a gate and when you get to my husband turn left”. As strange as these were we followed them and indeed did come upon her husband and turned left which took us up to Bolton Rd and then down Stopes Rd heading home. We parted company at Settle St where I continued along High St with the light fading I was taking the main road home rather than the canal route, safe rather than sorry. Once home we both sent our “Home Safe “ messages
