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squiz
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Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3073
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27th December 2018
Hiking - Walking: Peak Forest Tramway Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: cloudy Max Speed: Distance Covered: 6.30 mles (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise)
Friday 28th December - walk ***** – Peak Forest Tramway, Bugsworth Basin
- cloudy.
Thursday 27th December – walk ***** Crosby Beach – cloudy.
After a full English breakfast prepared by Pauline (a big thankyou to
Pauline and Mick for their fantastic hospitality over Christmas) my
original plan was to take the train into Liverpool and then go on the ferry
on the Mersey but in the end, we decided to go to Crosby Beach again to see
the Gormley statues but this time with the tide in! So, Mag and I packed up
our van to take our leave of Liverpool and then we went to the beach with
Rob, Hannah and Arlo arriving at 1 o clock. With the tide now in, several
of the metal men had only their heads showing. It does look very surreal
especially as it was a still, grey day! We had a nice hour walking along
the sand, even managing to find a little coal. Arlo was again loving
paddling and playing in the dunes:) After saying our goodbyes - never easy
but we will see them again early next year – well late January:) we
headed off and went the route we came, avoiding the M6 and going over the
hilly Peak District. As it started to get dark, we started looking for a
spot to stop overnight, then just past Bakewell, famous for it’s tarts, I
saw a sign to Bugsworth Canal Basin which was too good to ignore so we
turned off left and soon found the end of the Peak Forest Canal where
trains loaded lime onto canal boats and quickly found a nice place right by
the canal. There were even some canal boats with their Christmas lights on
even if the nearby A6 road was a little noisey! We went to bed really
early because it has been an exhausting few days :)
Friday 28th December - walk ***** – Peak Forest Tramway, Bugsworth Basin
- cloudy.
A good night in the van and the road noise went quiet the later it got.
Our plan was to have a walk along the canal but probably not too far as we
would like to come back with our bikes. Another cloudy day but not cold.
We left the van after breakfast at 10.25 and walked up to the end of the
canal to walk around the turning basin but Mag had already spoken to a
local walking his dog who told her about the Tramway that ran several miles
into the hills where the lime was quarried but he was not sure now far you
could go? We saw the sign to the Peak Forest Tramway which turns out to be
a cycle/foot path and really wished we had our bikes! This was too good an
opportunity to ignore so we left the canal for another time and followed
the Tramway to see how far we could get? The wide path followed a flowing
stream gradually uphill surrounded by hills, just lovely even on a murky
day! We came to a large factory, something to do with vinyl which had a
pond with black swans on. That was followed by Chinley where a new housing
site was being built with local stone. After the sewage works the Tramway
path seemed to end as it was privately owned and the council are trying to
re-route. We decided to turn left and walk to Chapel Milton to see the
large viaduct. It was an impressive brick build viaduct where two train
tracks converged into one. Then we did a short loop along the road before
meeting up with the path again. Sadly, it had started to rain lightly as we
headed back to the van. We had a walk around the impressive Bugsworth basin
which must have been very impressive in its heyday. There was a visitor’s
hut at the lock which showed old pictures including the trucks that
transported the lime which freewheeled down to the quarry with a young lad
sitting precariously on the side with a brake lever, health and safety
didn’t exist in the 19th Century!!! The trucks were then pulled back
uphill by teams of horses. Back at the van after being out 2 hours 30
minutes and covering 6.3 miles we had a well-deserved lunch before heading
for home, the end of a top Christmas away and nearing the end of 2018. We
had an amazing 145 nights away in our lovely little VW camper and didn’t
pay a penny for any of them:)
Photo Gallery Here
Peak Forest Tramway
Here
Peak Forest Tramway
Here again
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