the ribble way – 10 sep, 2018
Day 34 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Sollom to Preston
Distance: 20km
Cumulative distance: 858km
QUICK NOTE: Due to me misplacing my phone charger, all of today’s photos were taken by Stephen Buckley. You will notice a SIGNIFICANT increase in quality!
We actually spent last night in Preston and found a sensational Indian restaurant where the enthusiastic waiter couldn’t believe I was walking across the country. He was good fun and we had a good night, despite the cold weather outside. We were slowly away the next morning too because I needed to buy some more maps, plus a replacement charger since I’d left mine (along with my UK adaptor) in Warrington like an absolute imbecile. Mum then drove as back to Sollom and we were off for the day, bridging the gap between there and Preston.
This was the only time (I think) I’d stayed in a town I hadn’t yet walked to, and for whatever reason it creates a bit of a psychological blockage in your mind. For this entire day of walking I virtually didn’t allow myself to think of anything beyond Preston until I’d actually made it all the way to the city. Anyway, we were back on the canal which we only needed to follow for a short while before being forced to take some quiet back roads. It was along these roads I saw something I’d never seen before – a mobile café operating out of the side of a van which was parked on the road. That is, this was a road with one lane in either direction and the van occupied the entire width of one of these lanes. A little bit further up there was a security guard keeping an eye on proceedings. Utterly bizarre, but it wasn’t a busy road and the lady working there seemed to be doing a pretty good trade.
We left the road and took some footpaths across incredibly flat land which had little pools of water everywhere, left behind from the recent rain I suspect. Eventually we found a raised embankment which we followed for a while until we arrived at a signpost declaring we had found the Ribble Way. This is another one of those multi-day trails that seem to be all over the UK, and the Ribble Way was going to take us all the way into the centre of Preston so it was perfectly placed for our purposes. It certainly wasn’t the most strikingly picturesque trail I’d hiked, but it was beautiful in its own way – such a flat expanse of wet land with unimpeded views to mountains way off in the distance. The trail took us up to the River Ribble (which runs through Preston) and we turned right and headed east to follow this into town. The first section was across a farm field several miles long which must have housed at least 1000 sheep. By now we could see the distinctive spire of Preston’s Cathedral and rather satisfyingly the path was taking us in that direction. At one point Dad realised he’d lost his sunglasses, but we only had to retrace our steps for about 100m and they were sitting on a fence post – no harm done. The river started to bear south and we followed it along in slightly the wrong direction to our ultimate destination, and finally came to a footbridge we could cross. From there we walked along the main road and up past the university before finally discovering a Wetherspoons and grabbing a pint and a late lunch.
Mum came and met us and we headed for the Cotswold Outdoor shop where Mum and Dad were determined to find me a new pair of boots to replace the hopeless (brand witheld) I’d been wearing for some weeks now. The fella in the shop was absolutely brilliant – he measured my feet up for length and width and had me try on a few different varieties, dismissing each one for this reason or that before finally settling on a brilliant pair of Lowas. He then fitted me for some orthotics to help my perennially flat feet, and also made a few adjustments to the straps of my backpack for total optimisation. One of the great blokes he was, and he looked after me incredibly attentively. (I’m happy to say I’m still wearing those boots and they’ve survived some pretty harsh weather to get me within a week of finishing this thing). I walked out of the shop feeling about a foot taller with a stronger pair of boots and a much better posture, but best of all knowing that my wet feet should be a thing of the past. And yes, (brand witheld) will be receiving a strongly worded email when I return to Australia I can assure you. Might enlist the help of the great Jonathan Dawson for that one.
