Into Manchester

Distance: 14.5 miles
Ascent: 300m
Weather: overcast, couple of showers, chill wind

We set off this morning into Manchester just after eleven,  which was mostly because we were faffing around getting ready and packed,  but actually was quite a good thing as the rain, which had been really quite hard, had pretty much eased off by then. Accepting our shoes were going to get muddy,  we went via the path by the cricket ground and down the Medlock Valley Way as usual.

We saw magpies,  blackbirds, robins, lots of ducks and sparrows, frogspawn, a couple of squirrels,  geese and a swan having a fit that turned out to be a jack russell wagging its tail.

Our shoes did get muddy, the muddy sections were about what we'd expected and some of the old paving was treacherously slippy. We made it into town ok, dropped our stuff off at the hotel, and went for a look around the outdoors shops, resulting in the purchase of more socks.