The days when there is a clear path to follow in the GB coastal adventure, are the days when it is made easy. There are the other days, however, when you have to make up your own route, or part of a route and those days can be a bit of a scutter. Today was one of those days.
As well as being a scutter, it was also a day of contrast and contradiction. It was a day when the sunny (short-lived) became wet, the green sward became a muddy river and the sublime beauty of the seawall and the saltmarsh became a nightmare of giant horseflies, their persistence a purgatory of seemingly never-ending misery. Apart from that, it was a good day!
Under leaden grey skies, from Southport, we initially walked on the promenade before dropping down on to a dirt path that skirts the edge of the sands and the marsh (Crossens Marsh) that lies off the town shore. The path eventually butts up on to the edge of the marsh and you move to walk on a solid path to the side of the road above the shore and we stayed there until we moved on to our old friend the seawall at Fiddler's Ferry. After being attacked by swarms of Horse Flies, we came off Banks Marsh at Marsh Farm and walked on a track to the minor road before heading for the marshes again just below Hundred End.
Our experience walking the Wash was that where there is more than one seawall, the outer wall is generally left to nature. After our experience with the Horse Flies and expecting heavy rain, we decided not to take the outer seawall looking over Hesketh Out Marsh but to take one of the inner paths (there are four options here). It proved to be a difficult path, initially nothing more than a field margin, later becoming a mud-strewn track, moving through cabbage fields. So, so many cabbages of every variety. An education on its own.
At the end of this section we returned to the seawall where it runs along the banks of the River Asland or Douglas. As we hit the river heavy rain started and stayed with us all the way up the river. The seawall ended by a little shipyard and the path beyond there became ever wilder. In the heavy rain we were slipping and sliding in the mud and were eventually stopped by a herd of cows with calves at foot that were less than pleased at our presence. Unable to find a way around them, penned in by the river on one side and a body of marshy ground on the other, we found a way off the riverbank through a farm and in to the village of Hesketh Bank. It had been our intention to walk to Tarleton and take the bus from there back to Southport. The buses are one an hour. As we emerged from the muddy riverbank by a bus stop, with a bus due in a few minutes, we decided to end the day a mile early and waited by the stop for rescue!
At the end of this section we returned to the seawall where it runs along the banks of the River Asland or Douglas. As we hit the river heavy rain started and stayed with us all the way up the river. The seawall ended by a little shipyard and the path beyond there became ever wilder. In the heavy rain we were slipping and sliding in the mud and were eventually stopped by a herd of cows with calves at foot that were less than pleased at our presence. Unable to find a way around them, penned in by the river on one side and a body of marshy ground on the other, we found a way off the riverbank through a farm and in to the village of Hesketh Bank. It had been our intention to walk to Tarleton and take the bus from there back to Southport. The buses are one an hour. As we emerged from the muddy riverbank by a bus stop, with a bus due in a few minutes, we decided to end the day a mile early and waited by the stop for rescue!
As noted, at times a good day's walking, at others a bit of a scutter and by the end wet and bedraggled, we were glad to finish when we did.