Cumbria Ways - Day 1 Silverdale to Gilpin Bridge

Distance: 16.3 miles
Ascent: 200m
Weather: wet start, bright and sunny later
Detours: 1
Wedged in shoes: 1
Times licked by cow: 1
Oyster catchers,  lapwing, shelducks, mute swan,  grey heron, egret, pied wagtail, goldfinches, swallows and sand martens, greylag geese, black headed gulls. Goats, llama llama, bunnies, unidentified mouse vole thing and one grey squirrel.

At 11:30, an hour later than planned thanks to a points failure near Blackpool,  we were deposited at Silverdale station in the rain and set off walking towards the shore and the Lancashire Coastal Path.

A pretty wooded path with ivy covered stone walls and ramsones in flower led to the shoreline, where the tide was definitely in. We just about made our way over the rocky shoreline, I nearly lost my shoe in a cleft and had to prise it out and then we had to retrace our steps as the sea was too high and the low path was covered.

The alternative high tide route was a nice grassy path, through a meadow with flowers, which led us through the first of many caravan parks, and out on to a narrow path around the low cliffs of Arnside Park. Around here we crossed into Cumbria, it stopped raining and the sun came out, but the paths were still quite wet with sticky mud.

Lunch was had on Arnside Pier, which is made of stone and very short, then we crossed the railway bridge and followed the raised bank of a disused railway around a salt marsh.

For the rest of the day, after Milnthorpe Bridge we were on lanes. Lanes that were long and straight with sharp corners, leading to more long and straight lane.

We spent much of the way wondering if there was a nicer path over by the estuary embankment,  as we saw a few dog walkers out there but there was no indication on the map of a right of way there or a way to get through to it, the gate we passed was locked and signed private land.

The longness and straightness was broken up by seeing a buzzard, bunnies and meeting some friendly cows.

We arrived in good time at the Gilpin Inn and are now watching the end of the cup final.