The Meanderthals: BROCK

CONT'ACT BRIDGE 7+ Miles

Players :- Anthony, Danny, Vic, Frank, Mike, Paddy, John

Guy (guest) Martin, Dave. (Diners)

We parked in the Barton Grange Car park. Crossed the busy A6 road and climbed the footbridge over the West Coast Mainllne railway. (Bridge 1)

41 steps up

and 41 steps down

A grassy footpath led us quickly to the side of the river Brock.

and under the M6 motorway (Bridge 2)

Hardly a minutes walk beyond this bridge we arrive at the narrow Stainless Steel bridge taking us to the other side of the river. (Bridge 3)

Once over this bridge and the world became rather "Smelly". Wrinkled noses all round.

Wild Garlic lined both sides of the path. Love it or hate it ?

With our recently adopted new starting time it soon gets to Coffee break and on this particular walk "New Bridge at Brock Side is our preferred stop.

Here we are. (Bridge 4)

Break over we carefully cross the minor road (also busy) and continue to follow the banks of the "Brock".

Guess what ! We have walked scarcely more than a mile from our cars and here we have yet another Bridge. This time only a small one.

Danny crossing (Bridge 5)

Then at last we come to open fields. No more bridges at least for a while. Freedom, however, comes with a warning.

This of course prompted a flood (well maybe a trickle) of weedy jokes aimed at Vic our retired accountant.

From here we walked through two or three large fields before arriving at Walmsley bridge.

From here we crossed over Walmsley bridge (Bridge 6) and left the river Brock and the Brock district as we headed for Claughton.

In Lancashire there are several CLAUGHTONS. The one near Lancaster is pronounced "CLAFFTON", But what of the others .........

CLAW-ton........ CLAYton........ or CL-EYE -ton ? Anyone know ?

No more bridges for the moment but stiles to negotiate as we tramped through the field.

Through a gate and back onto a tarmacked road which took us past St Mary's School and onwards towards the church. We didn't reach the church, however, for as we got to the graveyard there, waiting for us, were our lunchtime companions Martin and Dave.

Both of whom are out of sight behing other walkers ?????

Our regular readers will know that we have a penchant for using graveyards as our dining spots...... Always somewhere to sit.

Not always a bench of course.

Looking at the faces one must wonder if the Meanderthals actually enjoy their walks 😏............................ We do !
Our guest walker had not realised that Meanderthals take ALL DAY even with short walks and had not brought "Provisions". NO PROBLEM ! Everyone was willing to share. But not next time ! 😠

Lunch over we left the graveyard.

We retraced our steps for about half a mile before leaving the road to follow a farm track. Just before we left the road we took a few minutes to visit a well planned memorial garden.

At this point Martin and Dave decided to turn back and return to their cars.

Goodbye Martin and Dave. Great to have had your company for lunch.

As we walked the short distance between two minor roads we came across a Giraffe. Rather a skeletal one but non the less - a Giraffe.

Back onto a tarmacked road and blatantly ignoring instructions to stop and wait for green.

That orange colour is RED.... 'onest !

The road sloped gently upwards for a few hundred yards till, at the point it levelled out, we turned from it to follow another farm track.

As we started down this track it began to rain and would continue to rain for the rest of the afternoon. So much so that as we reached the banks of the River Brock Danny and Vic decided to stick to the track and take the longer way round rather than walk through the probably very wetting grassed fields.

Off they go !

As they took this different route they missed the quite spectacular drifts of bluebells on either side of the river valley.

As we approached Walmsley Bridge the rain got steadily heavier and heavier.

.....and the path deteriorated as well.

Once past Walmsley Bridge the rain simply got heavier until it became a matter of "Heads down and battle on".

The cows seemed oblivious of both the rain and our passage through them.
Cows don't have front teeth at the top so can't actually bite. They get a tongue round the grass, as you can see here, and tear it off.

Back over Walmsley bridge,

Tree of the week ? mmmmmm ... don't really think so.

Brief flask emtying stop by "New Bridge" ....