Cumbria Ways Day 9 - Patton to Maryport

Distance: 14 miles
Ascent: 180m
Weather: warm and sunny
Ailments: bad back, sore toe, prickly heat / grass allergy
Happy cows, kerry sheep, stonechat, grey herons, posh pigeons
People doing cold sea paddling dance 2
People doing actual proper swimming 3

I want to live at Moresby Hall. The building is old, beautiful and tasteful, and our rooms were large and comfortable, with a very fancy shower with about seventeen different heads and functions. We also have a new contender for best packed lunch of the holiday.

The England Coastal Path takes a new footpath over the headland at Lowca. Out of curiosity, I pressed audio button at the information board and then regretted it. After a couple of minutes we were unable to make it stop, so walked away leaving the chap talking to himself.

The new footpath is not completed yet, and we had to follow a bridleway, which is also new and only the very latest OS map, not the one that we downloaded a few weeks ago. Still, even the diversion was much better than the old CCW which just went along the road.

There are lots of wind turbines dotted about the hills here and many large factories, but the sea was a vivid blue and we had fine views of the hills with their cloud topping on the Scotland side of the Solway Firth.

A rather depressing narrow, fenced in gravel footpath led through a new housing estate and then a huge wasteland of derelict and demolished industrial workings on the south side of Workington. It was a relief to get up by the quarry at The Howe and walk on some grass. At the highest point there was a big cross with Jesus looking over the town, where we sat and had elevenses. People have attached symbolic padlocks around it, and written remembrances on the post. There were some RIPs to a Nana, a Grandad, an Uncle, Brother, Son and a rather more prosaic We heart Taylor Swift.

We visited the promontory at the mouth of the river, admiring the views across to Scotland and then walked inland along the River Derwent, seeing a grey heron in the water and passing a couple of fishermen with big buckets of fish, to cross the Northside Bridge, which was reopened in 2012 after being destroyed by the 2009 floods, and which has a plaque to PC Barker who died.

There was a sign on one of the finger posts announcing that the path is diverted due to storm damage to the railway line, and a map. We followed the diversion a while,  which shares its route with the Hadrian's Cycle Way. The HCW is surprisingly bendy for a path named after a Roman.

A later diversion sign announced that access was closed while they did repairs, but there was no digging or construction being done today so we walked on along the path through the dunes and shoreline.

A handy bench appeared as if by magic a mile or so out of Maryport, so we had afternoon tea.

Arrived in town late afternoon and it seems that much of the town is out enjoying the sunshine. There's going to be a few sore heads in the morning.