Bollington

BOLLINGTON, WHITE NANCY, RAINOW

Distance: 8.5 miles

Difficulty: Easy

Weather: Overcast, showers, sunshine later.

Walkers: Alan Hart, John Laverick, Colin Davison, George Whaites, George Dearsley, Lawrie Fairman, Nigel Crank,

Apologies: Jock Rooney (wo^ki*g), Peter Beal (cruising), Tom Cunliffe (wo^ki*g), Julian Ross (dentist)

B Walkers: Geoff Spurrell, Tony Job, Mike Walton, Pete Morrall

Leader: Fairman Diarist: Dearsley

Starting Point: Main car park, Bollington

Starting Time: 9.30am. Finishing Time: 1.50pm

The Wanderers welcomed yet another new member, Nigel Crank, who has spent the last 27 years living abroad in Switzerland and latterly Portugal.

Coincidentally, many of the Wanderers would be catching a plane to Portugal the following day for some continental perambulation.

A keen skier, Nigel’s initiation to our Wednesday ramble was nevertheless a somewhat arduous one, asking him to climb to White Nancy and get soaked in a shower in the first hour.

Hopefully he will be back.

Having stocked up with the famous pies from F Smith’s, the local pie shop, our group moved off along the main street, past the church and eventually onto Cow Lane.

We were met by a South American looking gentleman on a bicycle, wearing tight fitting lycra, who attempted to enter into conversation with us.

There were entirely unsubstantiated suspicions that he might have been carrying some white powder, talcum obviously to prevent chapped inner thighs.

Waving the hombre farewell, we squeezed through the familiar stone stile and up some steps.

This is the Wanderers’ traditional route to White Nancy, which we reached by 10am.

Soon afterwards the rain, which the BBC website had adamantly insisted would not happen, began to fall, to the chagrin of Mr Hart, especially.

                                     It’s grim up North. Rain and wind during the first part of our walk

We took the usual path for a few hundred yards and then headed down hill to the main road, where we turned right and within a hundred yards or so swung left up some stone steps.

We crossed a number of fields and on reaching a metalled road turned right. This turned out to be Bull Hill Lane.

At the top is a T-junction and there we turned left.

There were further stone steps on the right and a sign denoting the Gritstone Trail.

This trail actually links Disley all the way to Kidsgrove, Staffordshire.

At 10.42am Pie Time was declared.

As if to show off to our newest recruit, Mr Fairman led us to not one but two fully operational picnic tables and in the absence of Tom Cunliffe a full  12 minutes of mastication was enjoyed.

I’m indebted to m’learned friend Mr Laverick, the application on whose smart phone informed him that to that point we had covered 2.8 miles at an average speed of 2.26 mph.

Our elevation had increased by 1000 feet and we had reached a high point of 1,288 feet.

We set off again at 10.54am, going through a gate and crossing a field as if heading for the 11 o’clock point.

We went over a stile and found ourselves on a road, where we turned left, passing Windy Way Animal Sanctuary on our left.

The sanctuary is part of the Windy Way Trust, initially a group of animal loving friends who formed into an organisation and gained charitable status in February 2005.

We joined a road and turned right.

A mere 50 yards further on we turned left and then diverted off the path to the left.

We went through a gate and turned sharp left.

At 11.25am the rain, which had stopped, began again.

We passed some tastefully renovated farm buildings, turned into dwellings and went over a stile to our left.

Our route took us to the Robin Hood which we reached at 12.01pm.

By now we had completed 5.8 miles with a maximum elevation of 1400 feet.

The B Walkers were not far behind us.

They had started in Bollington, headed along the High Street and walked via Kerridge to the hostelry.

The B Walkers’ exact route was shrouded in a fog of obfuscation and there was a scurrilous allegation that much of it may have involved bus travel.

Mr Walton, whose mobile phone has the same application as Mr Laverick’s, hinted that the B Walkers’ average speed had been around 25 mph, as he had not turned it off on public transport.

In the absence of a steward’s inquiry the allegation was left on file.

Meanwhile Black Sheep was £3 and Cheshire Cat £3.05

We left the pub at 12.55pm and turned right into Stocks Lane.

Traditionally we have taken the Virgin’s Path to the cars.

But today we went a different route.

We stopped for lunch at 12.59pm, setting off again at 1.08pm.

We turned left at Lower House Farm, which has a lot of history.

In fact if you would like to mug up on the history of the village of Rainow you can do so here.

http://www.rainow.org/TheStoryOfRainowRedux.pdf

For our final stretch the sun came out and we enjoyed the kind of weather one might expect in May. My photograph includes a pointer to White Nancy on the skyline.

We reached the cars at 1.50pm. Your diarist was sadly unable to join in the post walk frolics at the Dog and Partridge.

Next week’s walk will start from the Farmers Arms in Poynton, starting at 9.30am.  If you’re wondering where the apostrophe is even the pub’s own website has omitted it.

http://www.farmersarmspoynton.co.uk/

At the moment our putative leader Mr Laverick has not had time to work out where the half time stop will be but it could be the Boars Head or the Horse Shoe. Doubtless a plan will emerge from the uncertainty.