Fourteen walkers met at Lydiate Parish Hall for our first canal walk for fifteen months. It was great to meet up with friends and have a good catch up about where we haven’t been in the meantime. We set off along Southport road to see a peacock casually stopping the traffic while he crossed the road. We then turned on to a footpath to our left flanked by “yarn bombs” – a caterpiller and a spider. The path took us round a freshly ploughed field and eventually brought us on to Acres Lane. After a short stretch we climbed over a stile on to a footpath which took us to the Cheshire Lines path. We turned South and with clear skies we could see the red cranes at Seaforth Docks in the distance. Brenda pointed out a sign marking the old Lydiate Station site and as we stopped we met two cyclists from Mawdsley U3A and had a chat with them. We left the Cheshire Lines path and went over a stile marking the path as a ‘Knotting Trail’ with a Sheet Bend knot picture. This path took us through fields and some farm buildings and out on to Bells Lane. We only stayed on the lane for a short distance before taking another footpath through fields and walked alongside Maghull Brook. We crossed a footbridge over the brook and passed through another field to come back out on to Bells Lane and reach the Running Horses pub. We stopped here for a drinks break before joining the canal towpath towards Downholland. At Bridge No.18 we climbed some steep steps up and took a path through a field. This soon brought us to a couple of stiles and the edge of “The Jumps”, a racehorse training circuit. Resisting the urge to do a few laps of the track, we walked round its edge and eventually came out on to Hall Lane. Hall Lane took us back towards the canal and we crossed Jacksons Bridge and down a path on the opposite side of the canal to the towpath. We passed in front of some pretty cottages and carried on through a field on the edge of the canal. A large canal boat, “Lady Teal” passed us with a family sitting in a roof garden on top, enjoying the sunshine. We then came to the footbridge where we’d left the canal earlier and crossed over to join the towpath on the other side. The steep steps were harder going down than going up! A few minutes walk brought us to the path through the field and back to the Parish Hall. Six miles in perfect walking weather! Thanks to Brenda for organising and hopefully we’ll be able to resume our Cheshire Ring walks soon.

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