Thursday, 31 August 2017

Day: 252 25/9/02 Workington to Harrington

Weather:  Fine but cloudy.

Distance:  7.5 km (4.7 miles)    Total Distance:   3231 miles

I was working in Lancaster today and decided to take a day's holiday tomorrow and have a couple of days walking.  It was unseasonably dry; one of the driest Septembers on record particularly if you take into account that all the rain that did fall in the month fell on one day a couple of weeks ago.

I stopped in a Service Station to get changed out of my works clothes and into my walking gear.  My blister from a few weeks ago having heeled by now.  I got to Workington and there was a pull in in the industrial estate near the docks where I was about to start walking from but it had a burnt out car in it so I took the hint and parked up the road near a row of houses.

The path, part of the millennium cycle way,  took me down into the docks along side a railway over the river on a wooden footbridge via a gate which looked as if the dock owners had tried to fence off but had been told it was a public footpath and had to open up again. 

Once past the docks the path went towards the sea but no sooner had it got to the headland and it swung inland up the hill, past the monument and over near a quarry.  To get past the steel works I had to go inland and over the railway and followed that for the rest of this short days walk all the way to Harrington.  The path went between the railway and a menacing looking industrial estate with guard dogs.  Small foot tunnels went under the railway periodically leading to the beach. 

Once at Harrington railway station I examined the timetable and found it was about another 50 minutes to wait for a train.  I had been loathed to examine the timetable I had with me before I got to the station because it always spoils a good walk having to rush for a bus or train.  I wandered up the main street to see if I could see a bus stop and happened to see a bus coming into the village.  As luck would have it it did a u-turn and turned up at the bus stop just as I found it and it was going back to Workington. 

It took another 15 minutes to walk out of the town to where my car was parked and then about a 15 mile drive to the B&B I had booked in Egremont.  I had booked it late the previous evening finding it on the Internet and wondering why the rooms were only £16.  It was not a hostel for the unemployed as I was worried about but a place mainly for contractors.    Unfortunately the landlady told me that it was her birthday that weekend and that she had been told that no guests were allowed and a surprise as being planned.  Nevertheless I was glad of a place to stay for the one evening.

I went out to look for a place to eat but the local Indian was shout but there were a load of take-aways.  I got a Chinese and took it back to the B&B and ate it in the lounge as the landlady had invited me to.  It was a lounge with microwave, tea and coffee making facilities, a table and sky TV – a sort of posh B&B.  Others came in and started to chat.  I spent the evening talking to a contractor at Sellafield who had spent most of his career at Davey Magee R&D where I once went for an interview in Stockport,  and a shopfitter / chippie working on a hospital from Southport.


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