Well today was remarkably more enjoyable than the last two days. For me anyway, Tarrant’s general ankle issues were having a right old party today and her right shin decided to join in because apparently it didn’t think she was in enough pain. She’s been using new ankle straps, she’s wondering if they’re causing what we suspect might be shin splints. What she really needs to do is go and see a doctor and get a referral to a professional ankle human rather than throwing obnoxious sums of money at insoles and various joint supports in the hope of fixing it herself. You try telling her that though, it’s like telling me that I should also go to the doctors because my left knee has opinions about walking up gentle inclines. There’s definite eye rolling involved.

I’ll admit I did have a small tantrum when our Plumley to Mouldsworth train was cancelled and we had to wait an hour for the next one. I was all set to drive back to Slaithwaite and fuck the whole, ridiculous idea off, especially if the next three days were anything like the first two. Tarrant convinced me that we were already here, we might as well get today done. If the next train was cancelled too then fair enough but if it showed up then we’d get on it.

I was only slightly disappointed when it arrived. The bog was out of order though and we were sort of relying on that to offload the Red Bulls we’d drank that morning so we’d largely be squirming our way up whatever trail Komoot had in store for us today until we found somewhere sufficiently sheltered enough so as my vast arse couldn’t be seen whilst I cut Cheshire a brand new river.

Anyway. We jumped off the train at Mouldsworth and started off up the road. It wasn’t long at all until the road gave way to a lovely woodland walk. As in, it was amazing. The sun was out which is always good for the mood and the trail was beautiful. Wide, easy to walk on, well waymarked, beautiful trees stretching up to the sky and lush, colourful vegetation all over the place. This was Delamere Forest and it was an utter stunner, a much more pleasant start to the day than, well, either of the other two days. Certainly yesterday.

I enjoyed the fuck out of every footstep all the way to the conveniently placed visitor centre which had toilets. Ah, perfect. I didn’t just need to piss, my bowels were refusing to operate at the god awful times we were getting up at this week, deciding instead to wait until we were very firmly on the trail before making themselves very known. We annihilated the toilets and bought an overpriced drink each from the café; an anti-murder juice for Tarrant and a multinational cola beverage for me. Shut up and give me the sugar.

This is why everything takes us such a bastard long time, we’re very easily distracted by things like cafes or pubs or other purveyors of tasty beverages. Or sausage rolls for that matter. Or crisps. Or pretty much anything we can apply liberally to our faceholes whilst wondering why we weren’t losing any weight on this walk.

It was fine on the big hike because we didn’t really have anywhere to be so we could lounge around under the guise of supporting local businesses to our little hearts’ content but during these five days it would be really nice to get back to the car at a vaguely reasonable hour because the traffic adds half an hour to our journey home. Ugh. I missed camping. Not that there were many options along this route which was exactly why we were doing it this way.

There was a bit more outstanding woodland walking after we tore ourselves away from the visitor centre, then we had a choice to make. Komoot had lovingly crafted us a convoluted, fourteen mile walk from here to Plumley. I asked Organic Maps which way it thought we should go and it was like, “Nah, go the other way, mate. It’s only twelve miles.” It can be a bit of a thug, though. You know Komoot will be doing its best to keep you off roads even if it means sending you down a three mile detour through a nettle patch. Organic Maps will cheerfully send you up a 60mph road with no pavements and a very real risk of being taken out by a 4WD. It was two miles less though. Two whole miles less. I think you know which way we decided to go.

It very much was tiny, pavementless roads but the first one was really quiet. We didn’t even meet a vehicle. The second one was marginally busier but we figured we’d be okay when a bloke trundled past us on a mobility scooter. The third one was a lot busier and we spent a lot of time pressing ourselves into the bushes and questioning our life choices but we eventually made it to Cuddington in one piece and sat down at the playground for a spot of lunch because it has benches. Tarrant took her shoes and socks off to air her feet and house prices immediately dropped by £15000.

The next section was a cycle path along the side of a duel carriageway so that was a bit bum-clenchy. Vehicles thundered past us at 70mph as we strode/hobbled * (* delete according to which lesbian you’re referring to) along the terrifyingly narrow shared footpath and cycle lane. It went on for an uncomfortable quantity of miles before it spat us out by a river which we followed to Marshall’s Arm Nature Reserve.

Well this was another incredibly enjoyable section set to the sound of birdsong rather than roaring traffic. It was still tarmac though which Tarrant’s feet were taking umbrage with. I walk ten miles a day on tarmac for a living so I think I’m finding it a bit easier than she is, plus is helps that my ankles aren’t mutinous.

We wandered through trees along the river, stopped for a short while on a bench because by this point we were both a bit sore, then carried on to the gorgeously photogenic Hunts Lock. There are actually two locks here. We got chatting to the lock keepers. The older lock is much bigger but doesn’t work and never will now; it’s prohibitively expensive to fix it. Plus they don’t need a lock that big any more.

It was built to ship salt from the saltworks to Runcorn and Liverpool but these days they don’t see any commercial traffic, it’s just barges and holiday makers. The new, smaller lock is just fine. It’s more complex than the locks you see along canals which boaters operate themselves so these guys do it. They actually told us loads of cool stuff which obviously I can’t remember and they seemed to really enjoy chatting about it. So that was a fun distraction.

We had a little bit of a local park to enjoy before we were back onto a main road more or less all the way to Plumley. God it was a tedious march but we just smashed it out as quickly as we could. There was one last little bit along a footpath away from the road which every muscle in our lower bodies was very grateful for, then one last push to the car.

What a fucking day. Definitely my favourite of the three despite the train related tantrum this morning. Tarrant isn’t entirely sure she’ll be able to finish off the last two days though, she’s currently sat with a bag of frozen peas on her sore shin, Googling her symptoms. She’ll see how she feels when my alarm clock unceremoniously startles us awake at 4.15am tomorrow. Please can someone remind me why we’re doing this for fun?

STATS
Day: 93
Day on LEJOG: 52
Distance walked today: 16.7
Total walked so far: 1168.97
“The Top Half” total walked so far: 54.8
Weather: Great weather all day. Plenty of clouds but mostly sunny and only the mere threat of rain.

Jump to “Useful shit to know…”

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Mouldsworth, Cheshire to Plumley, Cheshire, England

Useful shit to know…

• Plumley is a small station with no staff or toilets.
• It doesn’t have boards telling you when your train is due, we found out ours was cancelled when I checked the Trainline app. There’s good enough signal here to do that.
• There’s a very small car park at the station which is free to use.
• There are direct trains running from Plumley to Mouldsworth. It cost £8.40 each, one way.