8. The Wyre Way (2003)

Length : 41 miles

Started : 19 April 2003

Finished : June 2003

Companions : (in full) Julie Farrell

Guide: Leaflets produced by Wyre Borough Council

Well as you can see this one was started less than a week after finishing the previous one and completed within a couple of months although I'm not sure of the exact date for the final stage.

Fresh from completing the Coastal Way we decided to get straight on with the next one. The Wyre Way is a strangely shaped trail which starts with a two-pronged fork and ends with a loop. The first 16 miles (the fork) are presented in the Coastal Way leaflet as an alternative route to using the ferry from Fleetwood to Knott End so it seemed a logical choice for the next trail.

The first stage from Fleetwood to Shard Bridge (the apex of the fork) was walked on Easter Saturday. The first 2 or 3 miles are actually the same as the Coastal Way heading south from Fleetwood as far as Rossall School. That weekend there was a big women's hockey tournament on and a burger van was in place just outside the pitch. I suggested we bought a drink there and settled to watch a bit of one of the games. When I finally ran out of excuses to keep watching the attractive young ladies doing their stuff we moved on across to the banks of the Wyre by a chemical works on the outskirts of Fleetwood. This wasn't the most attractive section but it soon improved and we enjoyed looking at all the boats at Skippool Creek before the final marshy section to Shard Bridge and the bus back to Fleetwood.

We did the next section the following day up the other side of the estuary to Knott End a very easy and attractive walk. It was nice to visit Knott End again in happier circumstances. We resumed a fortnight later for the 10 mile stretch away from the coast from Shard Bridge to Garstang. This was completely new territory to me. The transport arrangements were more complicated because there was no direct bus service between the end points. Eventually we parked in Preston and caught the bus to Singleton from where we followed a footpath to Shard Bridge. This path went through a salt marsh where we had to jump across some creeks. Julie fell short and got covered in mud. She managed to clean up a bit because there was a Portaloo at a big car boot sale on the other side of the bridge.

That was quite a challenging walk through what was intensively farmed countryside. The route often led away from the riverside but it was very well-waymarked so credit to Wyre BC for that. There was a bad moment when a herd of cows became quite aggressive but we got by unscathed. At the last farm before Garstang we had to go through a yard where a herd was actually penned in to reach the gate out onto the main road. It took some time to persuade Julie to go through but these ones were docile enough and we made it into town. Garstang was a pleasant surprise after never having heard its praises sung.

The following week we were back again . This time we had to choose carefully where to finish the walk because it was heading into the sparsely inhabited Forset of Bowland where no buses ran on a sunday. In the end we terminated at Forton from where we had to walk an extra mile across to the A6 to catch the bus back to Garstang.

Our last stage then took place on a weekday in order to use the bus from Abbeystead. It was a scorching hot day. We parked by the A6 then re-traced our steps back to Forton. I made a miscalculation that we would be able to restock with drink at Dolphinholme but I hadn't been there before and didn't realise the post office was there in the upper part of the village which wasn't en route.

We reached Abbeystead in the early afternoon. It's here that the Way does a loop taking in the two feeder rivers the Tarnbrook Wyre and the Marshaw Wyre before coming back to Abbeystead. Despite feeling dehydrated we decided to press on in the hope there would be a snack van by the river on the popular road through the Trough of Bowland. There wasn't but there was a family playing outside the farm cottage they'd rented. I asked the mother if she'd fill up our empty pop bottles from the tap but more than that she gave us a big plastic container of mineral water straight from the fridge.

If it wasn't for her we'd have had to turn back but we carried on. The last couple of miles I really had to push Julie to make the last bus but we did it with about 10 minutes to spare and celebrated with a meal in Lancaster.