I had a day off work and thus thought that the best thing for mind, body and soul would be to go for a walk, a local walk. Rain was forecast but I have postponed enough walks this decade owing to inclement weather so I simply took my cap with me! To expand on this, there are four people on the planet who have rainproof / waterproof coats that don’t cover their face when the hood is deployed. At 5’6″ and shortening, I do not qualify as part of that lofty elite. What I have deduced (eventually), is that if I wear a cap and then (when needed) stretch the hood over the cap – hey presto, it doesn’t fall into my face! Most other walkers have this sussed out by their third or fourth ever walk, some things take me a little bit longer!
Anyway, I also decided it might be nice to take the phone lens kit which my sister and brother-in-law got for me my birthday … in February – oops! The plan was to grab some nice photos so this dictated that I go to gorgeous Marshside because, well, basically it’s my favourite area of Southport, ahead of awesome Ainsdale and brilliant Birkdale.
I drove to Hesketh Road, at one point in time, when we lived three miles closer, I would have walked here but those days ebb into the distant depths of memory when there are rainclouds about, and this day there were plenty! Hesketh Road has a lovely little area set away from the road which looks over one of the great, picturesque – Marshes. Well it isn’t really a permanent feature so you couldn’t describe this as a lake and ‘pond’ would pretty much ridicule it so we’ll go with marsh. I set about affixing the camera lenses to the phone, and then soon arrived at the realisation that this was not an activity to imbue one with a sense of calm, if the lens doesn’t fall off, the image returned is a quarter of the size of what it wo uld be without the damn lens. My conclusion, if I want to ever go to a place in order to take pictures of something static and unaffected by the weather, where time is of no consequence and, well I can’t actually visualise this scenario. I’ll never throw them away, but I can’t yet find a real world use for them which doesn’t come with a side dose of frustration!
I set off on the walk proper. The weather was an autumn-lover’s dream, grey, overcast, threatening rain and nowhere near as cold as expected. I was in my element. The plan was to get a lot of steps in, as steps equal mileage and I went and signed up for the walk-1000-miles-in-a-year thing again. I was getting close to the 1,000, less than 50 to go and I could begin to smell success, last year I only clocked in 850 miles and felt miserable about it. I was a little dismayed at how slow my progress was on today’s walk, but then I took into account the wind factor, is Coast Road ever free from gusts? Not that I can remember! In addition, Marshside was in full ‘marsh mode’ today playing host to all manner of birds which was attention catching to say the least. In essence that was that. Not a lot more to say really as this was the most simple of all walks to describe, I stayed on Coast Road all the way to the “Plough Roundabout”, turned right and then headed to Fylde Road. At the co-op I called in as I was by now feeling peckish but their pies were in no way tempting, arid looking things that they were so I carried on to Marshside Road, turned right then down Fleetwood Road passing a golf course and back to the car at Hesketh Road.
As I say, not the most exciting walk to describe textually but a genuine feast for the eyes and soul out on foot.
Walk type: Urban.
Suitable for couples: Yes.
Families: Be careful in all parts of the route as the speed on most of this section of Coast Road is 50mph – so of course the German-car-driving-fraternity bomb along at more like 80!
Dogs: Mainly yes, although at different times of the day this might get a little nervy for your pooch with lots of high-speed traffic bombing past.
Time to complete: around two hours for a reasonably fit person with time for a photo or ten.