Trans Pennine Trail, Cheshire Ring Canal Walk, Murdishaw, Brookvale, Sutton Weaver – 18.04 Miles

This was the kind of caravan site where people really dig in and make the place their home. For some I still mean that in the sense of a temporary getaway that they’ve cultivated over the years, making something homely and folksy, something really expressive of who they get to be when they’re here. For some it seems clear that the stay is more of a permanent thing – they’re always that person. There’s definitely a sense of longstanding, ongoing inhabitation about some of the caravans I’m passing as I make my way to reception to pay for my stay. I wasn’t quite sure about the status of the tent next to mine. I never saw the occupant, but I think I heard them groan awake when I was trying to dissuade last night’s dog from whirlwinding around on my inflatable sleeping pad. Their tent, whilst still a tent, was an impressive, solid-looking black structure equipped with its own CCTV camera.

Heading back over the Warbuton Bridge I absorb the view once more. I can see a nice chunk of the line of the horizon I walked 10 years ago, and Manchester’s towers arre still well-enough defined that I feel I’m not fully out of the city’s orbit quite yet.

Warbuton Bridge Vistas

The first few miles of this leg were along a pleasant, tree-lined section of the Trans Pennine Trail through Statham, before I flipped over to a path which returned me to the side of the Bridgwater Canal. I’d be at the side of this canal for another 8 miles and so this should make it easy today to get locked in to a suitable mental state for thrashing through the distance. This was especially important for the pain-management side of things. My blistered foot felt its most painful for the first few yards after setting off from a standstill, and then when these had passed the pain seemed to get more muted. It was good to know this because after about mile 5 today I realised I was developing another heel blister on my second foot, and so it was going to be potentially twice the battle dealing with the discomfort. I did some blister maintenance at mile 5 and then got into ‘canal mode’ and just ploughed on through – trying to be stern to the pain like I was to that intruding dog last night.

Into the canal zone

The unbroken stretch of canal walking today meant I passed through the Southern fringes of Warrington without really encountering it. I had a great chat with a guy at the canalside sat next to his boat – he was chilling in the muggy warmth, shirt off and extensively tattooed. Like many conversations I’d have on this journey, it started with a comment on the size of my pack. This particular opening gambit was very warm and curious, unlike a more snarky version I’d had from an angler at the side of the Medlock in Daisy Nook on Tuesday. This chap here was genuinely interested in my adventure and I think I helped stoke up some extra determination for him to act on a plan he’d been forming for a while – a walk around the Welsh coast for his 40th. ‘Definitely do it!’ I said as I started to head off. I had a few of these genuinely heartening encounters on the trip – usually people who are curious about why somebody who seems packed for a month in the wild, is trudging around the fringes of Partington, Warrington, Runcorn or such. Like this chat with the guy with his boat, they mostly turned out to be great, morale-boosting exchanges. But that snarky Daisy Nook guy can fuck off.

On the fringes of the village of Moore I was excited to get some peeping views of Fiddlers Ferry power station. This thing has been a horizon collossus that’s present in my earliest memories of hillwalking, when I used to go on Sunday treks around Healey, Wardle, Norden and such with my dad. Its symmetrical braces of cooling towers, either side of its giant central chimney, comprised a markedly charismatic presence in the distance. It emanated a modernist splendour I was able to feel but not to fathom, and it continued to have a similar effect every time I spotted it on my walks as an adult. Really something to behold. A couple of years ago an entire half of its cooling towers were demolished, leaving a glaring absence visible to anyone who’d ever drunk in its great concrete curves from a distance. I think it’s a similar, more personal effect that I feel the loss of Alderman’s Hill from my kitchen window will have. It’s like a chord has been playing every day in the background, cherished but barely noticed, and then suddenly one day two notes are subtracted – it’s jarring, unsettling and lastingly so.

After the ten mile mark, I found a bench and had a lunch of nuts, a protein bar and some electrolyted water. There was a nice looking post office/shop just a few yards away and I could have got something more appetising from there, but the prospect felt like too much fuss to deal with in my weariness.

I cranked myself up for the next 8 miles and stepped out the first few excruciating post-rest yards, before the pain subsided once again into its more muted and manageable mode. There were a few more miles of canalside to walk, the views gettting more postindustrial as I approached the fringes of Runcorn. Then I branched off over a level crossing and into the suburbs of Murdishaw and Brookvale.

Say Hello Runcorn Wave Goodbye Canal

This more built-up part of the trek was given a nice boost by a chat with another super-pleasant and curious passerby. A woman walking her dog was keen to know what my journey was all about and we had a great few minutes chatting. I was particularly enjoying the fact that I’d now walked so far that the accent had changed – the Scouse influence was now absolutely undeniable.

Approaching Frodsham

After Murdishaw, things got very agricultural again as I passed through Sutton Weaver. I then crossed over the River Weaver and into the edges of Frodsham. At some point along this part (my memory’s already getting hazy less than a week later) I encountered the first maize field I’ve had to navigate on the trip. I’m not sure I even knew this stuff grew in the UK, such is the extent of my agricultural ignorance. I disappeared between dense rows of over-head-high plants as my map and the apparent path directed me, but after getting a a few minutes deep into it, there was no way of visually confirming it was leading anywhere I was supposed to be going, and it just became an anxious matter of faith. Thankfully the path remained visible enough, and eventually I could see trees ahead which indicated that the maize rows had to stop at that point. I emerged relieved… It was a bit like that film… you know the one – the Japanese one, where she runs through the tall crops… was it maize? Except in my case it was without the mad desire (was it mad?) and the supernatural goings on (I think it was supernatural?) But still, similar.

Then there was a descent into some ancient-feeling woods that were pungent with a deep, earthy fungal smell. A narrow, steep-banked path led out of the woods, which a couple were navigating awkwardly with a baby stroller, which the baby was now out of and being carried. They offered to step aside so I could pass them but I was already going at full speed given my weariness and sore feet and so held back for a bit, telling them I could use the rest – which they seemed sympathetic about. When I eventually did pass them they wished me luck, and I felt like I needed it as I trudged sorely through another couple of fields of taller-than-me crops.

Sensing the proximity of the caravan park I’d be staying at, I was enjoying navigating through what looked like they’d be the last agricultural challenge of the day – just one or two grassy fields. The last one rose not steeply, but had enough of an incline to pull me down to earth and to make me feel nothing other than the expenditure of effort. And when I got to its top I was aghast to realise that I’d misnavigated and that I’d just walked up to somebody’s back garden (some wealthy body’s – the house was faaaaaancy) and not the exit to the road at the top I was hoping for. I stared for a while into the garden in case I could discern a viable way through – there’s probably CCTV of me looking miserably through the garden towards the road, before trudging all the way back down the field again, and ascending once more on the correct side of a hedgerow.

I reached the caravan park shortly before its reception closed and pitched up next to another tent which dwarfed mine. People were playing padel in a court a few yards away, and continued to do so for quite a while after it got dark. I’d got some supplies from the reception’s shop and so was able to augment my ramen with some protein and get some pots of porridge and some beans and sausages for my next two days’ breakfasts.

But walking around the campsite to do necessary tasks – get to the toilet block, wash up, get my charger charged – was incredibly painful. It was like the relative muting of the pain earlier in the day was just a deferment, and it was all being paid back now with interest. At this point, I really didn’t see how I could do over twenty miles tomorrow.

But I’d held off using my hiking poles so far on the trip – the mostly flat terrain hadn’t seemed to necessitate them, and I wondered if bringing those into the picture might help ease the burden the feet had to bear. Also – and this might seem silly – I hadn’t taken any painkillers. I think my logic was that I shouldn’t take painkillers in case it encouraged me to keep walking past the point where I could do more serious harm to my feet. But that no longer felt as sensible to me as it had and I knew I had enough ibuprofen on me to keep me going through a full walking day. Worth a try, because if I call it off here, then all I’ll have done is walk to Frodsham.