Witton Park, Feb 27th


 

Ten group members plus Caroline and Manny from the Irregulars came to Witton Park for this walk. Our leader for today, Tom Lyons, pre-warned us about the mud we would come across and also that a rowing boat might come in handy in one particular section! However, the first few miles were relatively mud free as we set out along the canal, through Mill Hill to eventually leave it at Ewood. Now following the River Darwen along the Darwen Parkway we passed Blackburn Rovers FC football ground at Ewood Park and moved into Lower Darwen. Field paths took us to our coffee stop on the bridleway at the base of the other Winter Hill.

Descending through Tockholes we passed St. Stephen’s church with its ancient stone pulpit and made our way through fields, which were getting a bit muddy now, to arrive at Shaw’s farm where we saw our first lambs of the year in a small barn. Now we went through a wood, passing the archery and shooting range before turning left along a muddier path and then an even deeper and muddier one (had elephants been here before we arrived?) to reach our lunch time stop near Edge End farm.

After lunch we crossed Oak Royal golf course and picked up a section of Bottom’s Up! to go through Ollerton Fold and down to cross the canal once again. Now we crossed some very wet fields (the rowing boat could have been put to use!) before reaching the church at Hoghton where we had a short afternoon break. The last three miles took us through Hoghton Bottoms and Pleasington where we continued on Witton Weavers Way and back to our cars.

This was a good day out with the walk well led by Tom and, as he told us, we used lots of paths that were new to us. It was a very sociable group with lots of laughter and banter despite the mud which didn’t seem to bother anyone – we just got on with it.

To see who came on the walk please press below

to see the all the photos please press Here and then slideshow