Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The Hayfield, Ormskirk - our 38th Walk and Pub Lunch

Today's 5.0143 miles (8.0698 km) route to The Hayfield in Ormskirk...

...has been saved and is available at...

Our walk started at Maghull Railway Station, where Chris asked me, while we were waiting for the Train,
"What do you think the minimum charge is to make a phone call from a public phone box?"
I was  way out - take a look at the picture below to see how close you are...
 At the time I was looking at the paintings that fill a number of the windows...
 I try to walk different routes, each time we go for a meander but, it gets increasingly difficult. Today I tried to get the worse bit out of the way first. 
So quite a lot of road walking at the start...
 ...as we headed from Aughton Park Station towards Ruff Wood...
 We had our fingers crossed that the rain would hold off, at least until we reached The Hayfield, where we planned to have lunch. We were encouraged by breaks in the cloud...
 Apart from the usual farmland birds, 

  • rooks, 
  • wood pigeons, 
  • crows, 
  • jackdaws, 
  • magpies,
  • sparrows, 
  • skylarks etc. 
...we didn't spot anything unusual. It was nice however to see gorse in flower... 
 I'm not sure that I've noticed the "Welcome to Lathom" sign before either...
 ...another advantage of walking over driving.
The new Edge Hill University Sport's fields were looking well established, considering how relatively new they are...
 In Ruff Wood, we looked out for the carvings we hadn't seen. We saw the Owl again and, very close but missed on our last visit, we spotted the squirrel...
 We spotted quite a few real Grey Squirrels as well.
 We also spotted the wood pecker but were not in a good position to capture as a photograph. 
We were approached by two university students and took part in an interview about Ruff Wood, I hope it was useful to them. 
From Ruff Wood we headed across the field and then along Lady's Walk...
 ...which was a tad muddy...
 ...and nice to get back on the paths again...
 At the old Smithy, on Dark Lane we saw Winter Flowering Jasmine...
Just over the railway bridge we descended down onto the old railway track, to follow "The Smith Way"...
 At the signposted intersection, we took the path to the right, towards Burscough Road...
 ...passing under the railway line...
 From there it was back to road walking that took us to lunch...
You can see how The Hayfield rated at...
After lunch, we made our way to Ormskirk Bus Station and caught the bus home.
Another enjoyable walk in the Lancashire Countryside.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Rufford & Mere Sands Nature Reserve

Our 4.7369 miles (7.6233 km) route today, has been saved and is available at...

We started from the car park, in Meadow Lane, next to Rufford Station.
As you can see from the map, we headed back towards the canal and joined the towpath, heading South towards Lock Number 7.
Large Fungi, growing on grass cuttings were spotted very soon after joining the towpath...
 ...and then, on the opposite bank of the canal, what appeared to be a jackdaw on a goose's back...
It turned out to be a goose with a damaged wing!
After the lock, just before the swing-bridge, two swans came to see if we had brought any food...
 They were very quiet...
 ...and came very close to us...
 ...sadly we hadn't brought any food for them.
Poor planning.
We were impressed with the new path, just after Brick Kiln Lane, along the edge of the stream...
 ...it made it possible to look around far more than we were able to in the past.
Lots of sightings of black birds, a thrush and robins...
 Eventually we reached Mere Sands Nature Reserve and, as predicted by the weather forecast, the sun came out.
 Entering, the Nature Reserve...
 ...we walked clockwise around the edge, until we reached the exit, near Woodlands Animal Sanctuary.
We saw a lot of birds, including...

  • Ducks,
  • Robins,
  • Blackbirds, 
  • Gold Finch,
  • Great Tits,
  • Blue Tits,
  • Tree Creepers,
  • Moorhens and
  • Coots,
We also saw two large Grey Squirrels as well as a large carved, wooden one...
 There are some leaves hanging on but most have carpeted the woodland floor...
 We crossed a number of bridges on our walk, including one next to a small, man-made waterfall...
 The reflections of autumnal trees and blue sky, in the meres, was very pretty; I took a couple of pictures from one of the bird-hides...
 There were quite a few waterfowl on the meres but the geese, in the main, could be heard on the fields around and about...
 Bracket Fungus on Silver Birch was also spotted...
 On leaving the Reserve we walked past fields of leeks...
 ...and other crops.
There were lots of options for walks as well, with footpaths heading off in various directions...
 Eventually we looped back to the canal, crossing Town Meadow Swing-bridge to head back towards the car...
 As planned we called into Fettler's Wharf for lunch; the, what was a Coffee Shop, was now Tastebuds Cafe...

...which provided us with a very nice lunch.
"Another enjoyable Sunday Meander on a cold but sunny day! Well worth following our steps, if you can!"