Wednesday 22nd January 2025

An altogether much brighter day – started in rain but ended with some blue sky and the sun trying to pop his head through the clouds – we’ll take that, so much better than yesterday. We started off walking from Knott-End-on-Sea, a pretty seaside village although somewhat deserted. Lowry used to sketch here, it was a great inspiration to him. So we had to get a photo by his sculpture – forever the tourists!

We quickly picked up the sea wall path and it was such a treat to find it was tarmac, no squelchy mud thus far. There was a huge expanse of sand on the beach and we’re guessing the sea was there somewhere but was shrouded in mist. Some smart coastal properties too but their signage was well and truly letting us know that this foreshore was private property.

The sea wall came to an end after 3 miles and at this point we got chatting to a couple of cockle pickers who had just returned on their quad bikes, bringing in bags of cockles. They were a jolly pair too and were delighted to share all their cockle picking expertise – shame we missed a photo opportunity! As we left them, Steve started reciting: “I’m not a cockle picker nor a cockle picker’s mate, I’m only picking cockles cos the cockle picker’s late.” Well, I could not get that rhyme out of my head for the rest of the day!!

We picked up a country lane now so again pleasant walking for a few miles – we were using our OS app to follow the Lancashire Coastal Way. Surprisingly it took us onto a fairly major road (we found out later that the rest of the sea wall is closed off for construction). There was no pavement on this road and cars were whizzing past at 70mph – not idyllic rambling conditions. So, after a mile, Steve worked out a detour on to some country lanes that would circle around to where our car was parked. It was a huge agricultural area, both livestock and arable – not seaside but still interesting. It did however add another 1.5 miles onto the walk but we decided it was worth it for stress and safety reasons. And as the weather cleared we were just about able to see the mountains of the Lake District in the distance.

We ended our trek in another lovely village, Cockerham, where our flask of hot chocolate was waiting for us in the car! The thought of it had kept me going those 9.5 miles. But today we’d had no mud and no wind … it was a good day.

Now home for cockles … or is it curry!?