Stage 15 Blackrod to Wigan
Distance 10 miles
Cloudy start, warm and sunny later
Pied wagtail, thrush, heron, nuthatch, jay, moorhen, small blue butterfly
We took the tram to Deansgate and caught the train at Castlefield to Blackrod. They run every hour so there was plenty of time to go and buy supplies for lunch. There was a slime incident on the train.
The route leaves directly from the station platform in Blackrod and goes up a stone flagged path through houses to join the road. At the other end of the village, we turn up a farm track and over stiles through small fields, paddocks and grassy pastures. There was a definite smell of farming in the air.
As we walked along the lane at Little Scotland it rained a little but not enough to make the ground muddy, which was good as when we turned off the lane up a farm track, it was being dug up and we had to pick our way through the churned up ground. We walked along a disused railway and through a golf course to reach Apley Woods, which are being taken over by himalayan balsam, with only the bindweed and brambles putting up a bit of resistance.
At Worthington Lakes, the sun came out and we had a sit on a bench to eat our lunch - under the watchful eye of some ducks. We walked around the reservoir and out on to the main road at Standish, crossing the main road and passing some big new town houses up a track into world of horse. Leaving the yard, we joined the canal towpath where the canal was covered in lilypads, with swallows and dragonflies darting about. Some boys were fishing, but not very successfully judging by their expressions.
We made use of the facilities at Haigh Hall country park, which was very popular. The miniature railway is closed while they rebuild the tracks and the bird watching screen area was very quiet, although we did see a robin a bit further on. There were lots of people walking through the woods, at various stages of family days out, some of it was funny but I did feel sorry for the little girl with a bee sting. We left the main track to meander through some quieter paths through the woodland (with lots of warning signs but not much chance of flooding today) and then joined the Douglas Valley Way into Wigan. The path and river were very urban and concrete lined here but there were definitely trolls under the bridges.
We walked through the town centre to the train station just in time to catch the train.
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