A Bikepack to Chester, Day 1

Wednesday 1st August, to Delamere Forest

A quick pose for the paparazzi on the TransPennine Trail at Lymm.

I’ve not bikepacked for years so I felt a short trip would be a good plan for a shake-down – particularly as a bikepacking trip around the Cheshire Ring is coming up in the near future.

Jon, always happy to oblige, readily agreed to join me on this trip. We had originally planned to set out on this trip on the previous day, but a poor weather forecast convinced us to delay our departure by a day.

Jon arrived at JJ Towers soon after 9.30am, and after coffee and other tactics failed to further delay our departure, we set off.

The idea had been to get on to the towpath of the Bridgewater Canal in Timperley and to cycle out to Warrington. The wet summer had succeeded in turning that section of towpath into a quagmire – too much for our hybrid tyres to cope with. Our FWA, The TransPennine Trail was a most suitable alternative.

Image taken from http://www.seftoncoast.org.uk/

Jon was riding his new Decathlon hybrid bike. He’d had some teething problems with bike, but Decathlon in Stockport had proved helpful. Unfortunately a replacement rear wheel had been needed but as the new one was of a rather higher quality than the original, he wasn’t complaining.

I was riding Diana, my Dawes hybrid. It’s a solid bike with a large frame which suits me. I replaced the original wheels which has improved the bike. Shod with Schwalbe Marathons, I feel quite confident cycling over surfaces that might lead to punctures in ordinary tyres.

Both bikes were fitted with panniers stuffed with our kit.

We trundled westwards at a very leisurely pace – we weren’t racing and had nothing to prove. We were on our holidays!

The Trail leaves the old railway line in Warrington, taking to the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal which still boasts relics of the area’s industrial past.

Steel lattice road bridge over the Manchester Ship Canal 

 

Looking East from the swing-bridge at Stockton Heath….

 

….and looking West

We left the Transpennine Trail in Warrington, and after about a km of tarmac we arrived at the Bridgewater Canal. The surface of the towpath was really quite good and we enjoyed tootling along in the sunshine until we could no longer ignore our rumbling tums. A halt was called at a pleasant stop by a road bridge. Butties were demolished and Jon fired up his meths stove to make a cuppa. Ducks and their little ducklets quacked around, hoping we’d take pity on them and chuck them some crumbs. We didn’t – although plenty of other folks had brought (I assume) stale loaves to feed the ducks.

Lunch

A little later we felt an ice-cream stop coming on. After all, the sun was shining and it would have been rude not to celebrate the fact. The village shop at Moore provided the necessary whilst a comfortable bench seat on the towpath provided comfort for our nether regions.

The canal now headed south, past Daresbury and under the M56 at Preston Brook where we changed to the Trent & Mersey Canal.

The towpath surface was very good, making for easy cycling. all manner of boats were moored along the canal, most were pleasure craft whilst some were clearly working boats.

At Preston Brook the Trent & Mersey Canal enters a tunnel, at 1272 yards, one of the longest in the country. The canal is only wide enough for travel in one direction so a simple timetable arrangement is in operation, everyone takes their turn:

The ‘towpath’ is routed over the top of the tunnel – it was just about here that it started to rain. We sheltered under overhanging trees for the best part of an hour before sunshine returned and we continued our ride. 

As we cycled on, the canal below us, we spotted some odd-looking buildings. Some were air-vents for the tunnel, it wasn’t obvious what others were for.

 

Dutton, the South end of the tunnel

The well-surfaced towpath had a personality change after Dutton. The tarmac had been replaced by slippy, slurpy, slidy gloop:

Hybrid bike tyres are certainly better than road tyres on surfaces like this – knobblies would have been preferable. From time-to-time we had to get off and push the bikes, pedalling just didn’t work.

  Location clarification

I don’t know how old these signs are, I would imagine they date back to the days of working canals.

Wooden-hulled narrow boats close to Acton Bridge

Acton Bridge, just visible in the distance 

We left the grassy towpath close to Acton Bridge and crossed the swing-bridge over the River Weaver. We were undecided whether to attempt a wild camp in the forest, or to wimp out and use the Camping & Caravan Club site….complete with showers. A beer stop was called at the Tigers Head, Norley. After lengthy discussions lasting all of 2-3 minutes, we chose the proper campsite. It was the showers that swung it.

 Rehydration stop

We were only a couple of miles from the campsite so we could quite easily have spent (much) longer at the pub, but we were getting hungry.

A short stretch of tarmac soon delivered us to the edge of the forest. Good forest tracks made for easy cycling. At around 7pm we rolled into the campsite. Camping & Caravan Club sites have a policy of never turning away cyclists or backpackers so we were quite confident of getting on.

Tents up, brews made and tea on the go, it had been an excellent and very laid-back day’s cycling in good company.

The day’s vital statistics:

45km with 350m of uppery.

The first bit of today’s ride 

The second bit of today’s ride

(Click these images to enlarge)

More tomorrow!