Saturday 16 October 6 miles
Donna, Jane and Hilary
A cool morning left us wondering if we had put on enough clothes. It was a bit cloudy and there was a cool wind.
Donna had chosen a walk that she had done before. It was a walk that Tracey had done previously and Donna had enjoyed it so much that she had asked Tracey if she could have a copy of the walk so Tracey gave her the printed walk.
Parking in a layby at Lower Withington was easy, there was plenty of room. We
walked along the road a little, crossed the road and passed by the
footpath sign between the bungalows. The path led us behind the houses, then opened out to
fields that had been split up into smaller areas which fenced off the
horses.
We continued along the lane which became a track going passed a couple of farms. We liked the look of the old farmhouse, and.Donna noticed that the roof of the shed at the back of the feild had fallen in. We found the gap in the hedge and then had to pass through some very tall corn. Fortunately other people had walked the path so we found our way through the field.
The path was not obvious here so we got out the map, once we followed the edge of the trees we saw the stlie and followed the path onto the track, then joined the road and noticed a stile which once we had checked the map we needed to take to go across a field. The
walk continued around a wood, across an open area and then we went around another wood. Here we met people
with dogs, one dog was running free but returned to her owner when called, the owner kept hold of the the lead of the puppy whilst we
passed by, but not tightly enough to keep it under control. 'It's only a puppy' was said!
When we had walked through the woods we came to a place where a notice that said the public footpath was to the left but we decided to go to the right, I think this is where we made a mistake.We actually walked back on ourselves without realising.
Lunch was eaten whilst sitting on a stile, of course a couple with a dog came to go over the stile, they kept hold of the dog until they crossed the stile, stating that we needed to keep our food out of the way. There was a very cool wind so we soon felt cold. Donna and I were sitting on either side of the stile and Hilary sat on the grass. As we walked across the field a wedge of geese flew overhead.
We came to a road and managed to work out where we were, the road signs told us that we were on Whitecroft Heath Road which turned into Catchpenny Lane at a sharp bend. We realised that we had obviously gone the wrong way. Looking at the map we found the right road, so we walked along Whitecroft Heath Road to find the path we should have been on. Near the corner was a gate on which Hilary noticed there was a no parking sign put there by Lymm Angling Club, and as we were nowhere near Lymm she thought that was a bit strange. Ironically, a bit further down the road a young man as us if we knew where Catchpenny Lane was and the angling club - so we were able to tell him to go further down the road. We didn't know where we were going though!
We found the lane we needed to take, but then we needed to take a detour, we went through a small section of woodland and straight across a number of fields back to the old farmhouse. There were plenty of cows in the fields munching on the lush green grass. We returned the way we came along the road, then the track and passed the horses again. Hilary fell for one the horses. Soon we were back to the car.
Hilary suggested going to Bidlea Dairy, she thought there might be a cafe.So instead of having tea and cake we had icecream! Blackcurrant and liquorice, rum and raisin and butterscotch were the choices of the wonderful icecream. As we sat on the terrace area the sun slightly struggled out from behind the clouds. We had a lovely view of Jodrell Bank.
