Lancaster Canal Day 1.
Distance today: 26 miles.
Total distance: 637.4 miles.
Accommodation: campsite.
Penny’s birthday. I’m honour-bound not to divulge her age but one of the photos has a small clue. I was definitely feeling guilty about being away, galavanting around the country, but she’d let me off the hook by allowing me to pick up the tab for a glamping weekend. Not much galavanting going on today as I began my towpath marathon. When I was planning the trip I always knew the price I would pay for getting to travel through the Lake District was spending a similar amount of time canalside from Kendal to Leigh. I tried to look at it optimistically as easy miles but in truth, I wasn’t really looking forward to it.
First up: the Lancaster Canal which connects Kendal to Preston. The start of the canal seemed to have a couple of vital ingredients missing, namely water and somewhere for the water to go. In its place was now simply a tarmac path. As I headed further into the countryside, I passed through a variety of fields and weed-strewn pathways with still no evidence a canal had ever been there. Eventually, I did start to see a few hints in the form of canal-shaped dips in the land and, more obviously, bridges that might have once served a purpose but were now largely abandoned follies. The fact that the bridges all appeared to be in near-perfect condition – albeit covered in vegetation – stood as testament to the engineering that went into them.
Bit by bit, a ‘proper’ canal started to emerge. First came a recognizable but overgrown water channel, then something that looked vaguely navigable and finally, a genuine aquatic highway. Okay, there still wasn’t much activity but there were boats and moorings. At least it was trying to be a canal. Ironically now it had fully evolved, it was less interesting to walk next to as it all got a bit repetitive. Meanwhile, the towpath wasn’t particularly well maintained which meant for a lot of the time I seemed to have to fight my way through the damp undergrowth. Along the way I crossed paths with the M6 four separate times. On one occasion, I assumed that I could follow the path all the way under the motorway as you can back home at the bridge near Stonehouse. I assumed wrong and so needed to backtrack to find the official detour.
I took another detour at Carnforth to have a coffee and pick up some provisions at Booths (aka Waitrose of the North).
And so to the matter of where I was going to sleep tonight. While there were various caravan parks dotted around, there didn’t seem to be many campsites. The most convenient one I could find was the Archers at Red Bank Farm campsite at Bolton-le-Sands which was about a mile from the canal. Is that the sea I see before me? Yes, I had officially made it to the west coast. Morecambe Bay to be precise. I’m not sure why exactly but if felt like another milestone. I reached the campsite around 6pm which meant reception was closed and I needed to speak to the on-duty warden. He charged me £16 which I thought was a bit cheeky but if that was the price, that was the price. The field set aside for those of us who didn’t need an electric hook-up was big, open, and disappointingly on a slope. Why oh why? Being one of the few people staying there meant I did at least get to pick my spot. It felt like it was going to be a windy night so I pitched close to the hedge. Not far away were a couple in a campervan who had originally parked at the top of the field before coming to the same conclusion I did. Al and Jan were their names and after a nice chat, they very kindly handed over a tenner for the cause. They also mentioned that they had paid £16 as well and we all agreed I had paid too much. More out of curiosity than complaint I went to double-check with the warden if the price was right. He said he would confirm with reception tomorrow but not long later he came up to the tent and gave me £10 back. £6 was clearly a lot more reasonable.
My last activity of the day was to go for a quick wander down to the shore. I say quick because the wind was biting and I didn’t fancy hanging around for too long. Just long enough to admire the long empty beach and the dramatic sky.
