Our sojourn on the seawall was initially quite pleasant as we enjoyed the quiet and solitude that such places always seem to have. It was a surprise to us that the landward side of the seawall was heavily farmed and seemed to lend itself particularly to the growing of cabbages. Not just any old cabbages but a wide selection of them, some of them looking monstrous in size.
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. The cattle were standing or lying on the seawall and were already spooked by the weather and were pretty restive. Unable to find a way around them, penned in as we were by the river on one side and a body of marshy ground on the other we decided to retreat. Consulting the map, we found a way off the riverbank through a farm and in to the village of Hesketh Bank. The route through the farm was torturous, on a path obviously taken by the cows to and from the farm, making it in the rain a horrible, smelly mixture of mud and manure.
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!