Cumbria Ways - Day 5 Barrow to Broughton in Furness

Distance: 17 miles
Ascent: 150m
Weather: cloudy

Wet muddy feet 1
Shopping trolleys in mud 3
Pill boxes, most of them sideways
Collared doves, foxes, reed bunting, skylarks, lapwing, jay, crabs (various sizes, all of them dead)
Natterjack toad tadpoles, ringed plovers, curlews, sand martens
Trolls 0 Lambs 2
Cuckoo, deer, warbler (tbc cetti?)

Today the time issue was not tide related but weather.  The forecast said there'd be a bank of rain crossing the country from the east, due to reach the western coast by about five o'clock.

We were at breakfast at 7am and out the door, after some confusion with last night's dinner bill, at about 8.20. We left Barrow town centre near the dock museum and walked along the estuary bankside path, with views over the muddy waterless riverbed to Walney Island.

At Ormsgill we dropped down to the shoreline and skirted around the bottom of the cliffs of the gravel pits,  venturing briefly out onto the sand, which turned out to be slippy claggy mud, which turned up in my shoe. We went back to the shingle.

Farther on, the path gradually became more grassy, we saw foxes, and crossed the sand dunes at Lowsy Point. There was an eclectic mix of cabins at the south of the point, and then we were out onto the vast expanse of Duddon Sands. The tide was out and the sands looked to stretch for miles. Far out on the horizon, under grey skies, the West Duddon Sands wind farm was visible, the turbines not turning today. To the north there were clear views over to the Lakeland Fells. At the north point of Sandscale Rabbit Warren (we didn't see any) there are pools where Natterjack toads breed and we saw lots of wriggly tadpoles.

We stopped for some tea and flapjacks (the last of Sunday's packed lunch) on a sheltered spot under Roanhead Crag, before continuing on over the sands.

After Dunnerholme golf course we headed inland onto a grassy sheepy meadow marsh, pausing by a stile to shake the sand out of our shoes. The grassy sheepy meadow marsh narrowed, until we were alongside the railway line, forced to clamber over the large rocks placed to defend against the sea. By now the tide was coming in fast, covering the low lying areas, and the sheep were making their way up to higher ground. We did some herding of a mother and lamb who'd got stuck between the fences of the field and the railway line back to the rest of the flock. They were pretty ungrateful.

When the grassy sheepy meadow marsh ran out, we crossed the railway line and followed country lanes into Kirkby in Furness. The lane had road closed signs up along it so after a late lunch on a quiet bench, we made a detour up and around on footpaths. This turned out to be unnecessary as the lane wasn't completely closed after all, but we did see a massive wall. We went through the Duddon Mosses nature reserve, where I saw a deer, and crossed some nice cut fields with pretty views, that ended in a marshy wet cow field. It was dried out thanks to the dry weather we've had lately,  but I did have flashbacks back to the Pennine Way.

We arrived in Broughton in Furness (fancy jam shop!) at 4.40 but the Old King's Head, where we are staying tonight, doesn't open until 5pm so we are sitting on a bench outside and it's started spitting.