Burrs Country Park, Bury

We awoke to clear blue skies again, the only thing disturbing it was the fire we had noticed on Friday (which we thought was a bonfire), it turned out to be a nearby factory on fire, the blaze was still going and there were 3 fire engines in attendance!  Anyway, we hitched up the ‘van and drove to Burrs Country Park caravan site, just north of Bury.  We found a pitch which overlooked the railway line which ran by the back of the site.  The East Lancashire Railway operates on the track, and there were lots of steam enthusiasts lining the route, we got our lunch ready just in time to watch one of the many steam trains of the day trundle its way along the line, we waved at the passengers and got a load of waves in return!  We took the dogs for a walk in the park, Prince found a stick to play with, and on the way we passed a bunch of canoeists paddling up the river and dicing with the rapids. One of whom nearly drowned when his boat capsized, he got out alive though! 

Very wet and windy in the night meant a disturbed nights sleep.  When we did get up we discovered a disaster! On opening the under sink cupboard to get the dogs food out we found it was soaked, and everything in there (including all our leaflets collected on the trip) was sopping wet.  We spent the next hour hanging papers up to dry and cleaning out soggy dog biscuits from the recesses of the cupboard, yuk!   In the afternoon we made a trip into Bury, first stopping at Leisure Lakes to look for a chainring (can you believe - we had to give up on the one we ordered from Wheelbase, after phoning them 3 times they still hadn’t received it and never phoned back.), Leisure Lakes didn’t have any in stock either!  We moved the car had a walk around the shopping area, including Bury’s “world famous” market, which didn’t look particularly famous, or even very nice so we promptly left!  We drove back to the safety of the country park and went to check out the Brown Cow, the pub next to the site.  Quiet in there as it was a Monday and the landlord was a bit grumpy, but the place itself was nice enough and the nutty ale was great! 

Off to Lymm the next day.  It took around an hour to get there on some very busy motorways which had Linda cringing in the passenger seat (we don’t do motorways anymore!).  We parked up and set off on a walk along the canal, it was a 6 mile route in the end that took in most of the village.  First we went along the canal which went under the M6, funny to see the contrast of the slow moving world of the canal with the motorway traffic rushing past a few feet above! We then joined an old railway line which is now a cycleway and took us back towards the village, giving us a good view of the Thelwall viaduct, carrying all that M6 traffic hundreds of feet in the air over the Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey. Once back in the village of Lymm we had a little wander round the centre, it is a really nice village with a number of shops and pubs and reminded us of some of the Cotswold or Peak District villages, surprising given it’s close proximity to Manchester and Warrington.  We got some butties and sat on a bench by the weir in the centre of the village before walking up to the Lymm Dam, the dam was built in 1824 and carries the A56 over the top, the dam created a large lake which we walked along surrounded by woodland which looked lovely in the autumn sun. The dogs spotted a few grey squirrels on the way around, which kept them busy, and before we left the lake we dunked Prince in as he was filthy!  We walked back past some huge houses in the more exclusive area and then via the Ridgeway Grundy Park, another area of nice green space.  Once we got back we met up with Phil’s Uncle David who lives in the area, we went in and had a brew and chatted about our trip and experiences.  It was great to see David looking so well (during the year he had been diagnosed with brain cancer, and is undergoing treatment), and we will see him again soon when we get back home.  The drive back was busy, but when we spotted a bike shop as we passed through a town Phil ran in to see if they had a chainring, but no joy again! No mountainbiking for nearly a month now, and not looking promising.

Next day we drove up the road to a car park near Ramsbottom, we then set off on our 6 mile hike over Holcolme Moor.  First we headed up the steep hill to the Peel Monument, a huge memorial tower built in 1852 to commemorate Sir Robert Peel.  When Peel was Home Secretary he was instrumental in creating the modern concept of the police force, leading to officers being known as “Bobbies”, he later served as Prime Minister between 1834 and 1835.  While we were at the monument a couple of “Bobbies” came up the track on horseback, the horses were still in training but the day before they were out on the beat in central Manchester!  Linda got to pat both of the horses before Phil dragged her away to let them get on with their day!  We carried on across the moor to the top of Bull Hill, where we had fantastic panoramic views with Manchester to our South and Blackburn to the North, it was a lovely clear day, if a little cold, so we could see for miles.  Dropping down the hill again we were trudging across the moor, and the sun was gradually melting the ice (which Prince was enjoying playing with), eventually Linda managed to sink both feet into a peat bog and ended up with black balls of peat at the ends of her legs!  Shortly after we had reached a main track and passed a farm we stopped on a grass bank to sit and eat our lunch, we had great views over the village of Edgworth and its 2 nearby reservoirs.  We then continued our walk back over the hill and returned to the monument with a quick stop at a bench, placed on the hill to commemorate the millennium, by now Prince was so dirty he was half black and half white and after failing to find anywhere to clean him off we tromped back to the car and headed home. 

As predicted by the forecast we awoke to heavy rain this morning.  We stayed in the ‘van most of the morning, except for Linda taking the dogs out for a walk. Eventually the rain stopped so we decided to get the awning down while the going was good.  This turned out to be a hysterical exercise, with the various bits of the awning flapping around in the wind while one of us was trying to hold on, and the other running about picking up the bits that had blown off!  Eventually and very skilfully (of course) we manhandled it into its bag and shoved it in the car.   As the rain had stopped and it was now just very windy we decided we should venture out somewhere.  Ian had recommended

some villages to us a few days before which were only around 20 miles away from us, so we thought as we had time we would pop over there for a look.  The 3 villages of Diggle, Delph and Dolcross are all situated just outside the North border of the Peak District National Park, and after a bit of motorway only took us around half an hour to get to.  We arrived in Delph first, which is a lovely little place built within a valley with lots of steep streets leading to its centre, it was in complete contrast to the very busy Bury we had just come from and nice to have a wander through.  The three villages are no more than a mile apart, but are separated by some huge peaks, so we drove over to Diggle next where we discovered not very much at all!  We had a walk up the village centre (we know it was, as sat nav told us so), but couldn’t see much apart from the housing estates, so eventually Linda asked a local where the village centre was, her response was “I’ve never heard it called that before!! I guess it’s just the middle bit down there?!”.  We walked back to the car and drove on!  Dolcross is a similarly tiny place, and to give each it’s due they are very picturesque villages, but in the wind and rain we decided to cut our losses and head home!  To top off the day, as we were trying to navigate through Bury’s complicated multi-lane road systems Phil decided to stop at a green light (as the traffic on the right was stopped) this confused everyone else on the road and it wasn’t until a massive crane-on-the-move honked at us that Phil realised the green light applied to us and we drove on in a red-faced fashion!