Lancashire Way Day 5

Withnell to Preston 

Distance 17 miles 

Ascent 300m

Hare, reed bunting, curlew 

We left the hotel and walked back along the lane to rejoin the route. The walk this morning seemed to be mostly through farmland, Grassy sheep fields and around the edges of some crop fields. As it had been dry the going was good, although many of the stiles today were very rickety. 

We stopped for some camera battery faffing, five days without charge too much to ask, under watchful gaze of a horse. We crossed Chorley Road and walked though the village, complete with a bungalow with battlements and back into farmland. 

We saw a sign warning us to Beware of the... something, possibly the badly tied handle on the electric fence. 

At Hough Hill we went up to the top of the hill to visit the trig point and then followed a narrow path between cliff edge and barbed wire and gorse around the old quarry at Denham Hill. A bit of scrambling back down to the road, this bit probably isn't part of the official route. 

There was a section of road walking around fairly quiet lanes to get back to the canal towpath, to see a flight of 7 locks. Unusually there were benches on the towpath here, so we had a sit down and some tea. 

Farther along the towpath we saw Grey wagtails, a buzzard, snoozy ducks and reading about boat rollers while Bailey the dog rolled in something disgusting. 

A low tunnel took us under the M61, then into the pretty village of Whittle Hills with olde cottages complete with peacock. We walked along their newly refurbished path, and admired the handy work of the residents who had rebuilt the dry stone wall. 

Then into Cuerden Valley Country Park where we had another sit down and then had (a massive) lunch at the visitor centre which had been built by volunteers in 2018. 

Leaving the park we went over some land which is being developed, there was a massive hole in the ground and loads of fences everywhere, thankfully the path.was still accessible and there was a way through onto another disused railway line. This led to the Old Tram Road which took us into town and the railway station where our walk ended.