Poynton

Saturday 16 February 2019 6 miles

Jane, Tracey, Donna + Hilary

The walk had a bit of history, woodland, open views, canal, horses, deer and a single sheep in a field. 

We were lucky with the weather, and it wasn't too muddy under foot. 

We parked in South Park Drive. As we walked up the road we passed a plot of land where there is to be an estate of expensive lake houses being built starting at £1.25 m - and those would be the ones by the road and the gate! Two women with bikes were looking through the holes by the gate, we asked if there was anything to see, they said there wasn't. In having a look for ourselves all we could see was bare earth, the site had been cleared and the earth was being moves presumably to make the lake.

Once we got to the end of the road we were out into countryside. Walking through the woods with the sun shining through the bare trees was very pleasant. The woods were dog walking territory, a black dog, Brutus, adopted us so that we could throw his stick. until Donna threw his stick over the fence. Hilary found a bigger stick, the dog then bounded off to show it's person.

As usual Hilary hadn't had enough breakfast so she wanted her lunch from about 10.45! We crossed the Middlewood Way, continued towards the Macclesfield Canal and followed the towpath for a short distance, crossed Bridge number 14. The path then went towards a farm. At this point we could see The Cage on the hill so were close to Lyme Park. With the warmth of the sun in the sheltered pathways we all decided to take off a layer. We were now at the turning point of the walk, so we came back towards the canal, crossed it, followed the marked path towards a farm.

As we arrived at some woods with fallen logs we thought that was a good opportunity to stop for lunch and it was twelve o'clock by then, so a good time to stop. We sat on a log under the trees with a woodpecker calling. The sun was shining and it was very pleasant.
There was mud on the steps down to the road, so we ended up with mud on our boots.

Poynton Tea Room provided us with tea and cake, we had banana cake, fruit cake, a cup cake and a toasted tea cake as well as our cups of tea, 2 very weak earl grey teas and 2 ordinary teas.