My 2.6 challenge for charity Shelter, Day 4, May 2

My route today began exactly the same as Day 3, up Guilden Sutton Lane, right over the Railway Bridge and under the Greenway, going straight ahead to the A56. Today, however, I turned left just before the Toby Carvery and headed up the little overgrown path to the gate. Once upon a time there were styles everywhere, but most of these have been replaced with these metal gates, which I must say are much easier if you have a dog.

A plank across the ditch takes you to a big open field where you can go around the perimeter. Years ago this was a lovely grass field where cows used to graze and you could walk diagonally across it. Then it was sold and years of a successive crops have chewed up the land and the diagonal crossing is no longer a viable option.

Even the path around the perimeter is not great.

I passed through the metal gate and this time turned right onto the Greenway as it was only 6am and I thought I’d be fairly safe.

Almost immediately a runner flashed by with his dog, but fortunately no other soul. The Greenway was once a railway line, running to Mickle Trafford and beyond, which was turned into a cycle way and footpath as part of the Millennial cycleways project. It is now extremely well used; well was until recent circumstances have changed our lives so dramatically. Halfway down the Greenway is a bridge over the still functioning railway line.

The runner and the dog flashed by again from the opposite direction, but I was able to give him a wide berth. Every so often little vistas opened up and I stopped to photograph a couple that appealed to me.

At the end of the Greenway I turned right and headed back in the direction of Guilden Sutton, past the very popular Meadow Lea, a farm coffee shop, which had been very popular with cyclists, walkers and the general population. It used to do a roaring trade so it was quite sad to see it all closed, knowing it won’t open again for a long time.

Arriving back in Guilden Sutton I resisted the temptation to turn right to return home and carried on until I came to the entrance of another path down to the Gowy, which passes Tile Barn. When I first lived in Guilden Sutton this was a derelict barn, which was then taken on by a couple I knew as a barn conversion. These days it has changed hands a number of times and is an extremely attractive property. It is fortunate indeed that walkers like me still have access past the property. Here there is an entrance to a field with a lovely hedgerow. The sun was trying to break through at this point and there was some lovely light over the hills of Barrow.

I used to love coming on this footpath with my dogs, but it has changed a lot under the current owner, who has built a big barn on it. I was delighted to see he’d maintained a bank for wild flowers to grow on.

At the end of the field the path goes through a little thicket with a gate at the end. Once upon a time you could go straight through the field to the big style at the end, but now it’s down the perimeter again and through an open gate. I was, however rewarded with a lovely view looking over to the Helsby Hill.

I turned right at the bottom of the field and towards the Oxen Bridge across the Gowy. It was interesting to approach it from a different angle.

From here it was back up past Arden’s farm and retracing the steps of a number of previous walks, but there is always something different and today it was the amazing light sky contrasted with the wild inky clouds.

I was particularly drawn by the vibrant sounds of the birds, their calls only interrupted by one passing car. So often nature is blotted out by the noise of modern living. Although I’ve found it hard getting up so early the rewards of nature have more than compensated me

I carried on to turn at the foot of Porters Hill. It was a particularly hard slog today, because my foot, which I broke last September was really starting to hurt again.

I turned into Oakland’s and very quickly spotted the rubbish bin men already hard at work with their distinctive orange suits against their purple truck. They conveniently turned into a cul-de-sac so I was able to pass safely. I paused to photograph them as part of our unsung heroes in our current crisis.

I had covered another 4.7 miles of my challenge.

As my challenge was to walk for 6 days and try to cover 26 miles or as close to, I’ve decided to include my walks from the previous Monday and Saturday as the both fall within the same week. It is now impossible for me to continue walking, but I am pleased to say that with the 6 walks I did from last Saturday to yesterday I covered a distance of 26.5 miles a bit more than the 26.2 miles of a marathon, so I’m very happy to say I fulfilled my challenge.

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I’m extremely grateful to those of you who helped me in my objective of fundraising for Shelter with my 2.6 challenge. Thank you all very much and many thanks to those of you who have read my blog I know that in years to come it will be an historical record of what I did during the Coronavirus Pandemic.