{"id":3174,"date":"2022-06-08T12:33:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T11:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stonekicking.co.uk\/?p=3174"},"modified":"2023-07-18T14:20:29","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T13:20:29","slug":"day-33-kendal-to-bolton-le-sands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stonekicking.co.uk\/?p=3174","title":{"rendered":"Day 33. Kendal to Bolton-le-Sands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lancaster Canal Day 1.<\/strong>
Distance today: 26 miles<\/strong>.
Total distance: 637.4 miles<\/strong>.
Accommodation: campsite<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em> but in truth, I wasn’t really looking forward to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First up: the Lancaster Canal<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>. I assumed wrong and so needed to backtrack to find the official detour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took another detour at Carnforth to have a coffee and pick up some provisions at Booths (aka Waitrose of the North).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> 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 \u00a316 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 \u00a316 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 \u00a310 back. \u00a36 was clearly a lot more reasonable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n