8th March 2020 ride to Botton Bridge (Page two)

- Page one - Ride report -

Daffodil in flower on the bank River Hindburn near Bridge House Farm Tearooms in Wray.

A lesser Celandine in flower at side of Back Lane.

The cake photo at Hornby Post Office Tearooms.

Primrose in flower at side of Lea Lane.

Dandelion in flower at side of Aughton Road.

Ride report by Simeon Orme It was one of those weekends where my plans for the Sunday ride, had gone out of the window, due to weather, it had rain off and on through the night and started to clean up on Sunday morning, as the storm blown itself across the British Isles towards Mainland Europe. So its was case of following my usual route along the cycle path with detour in to Caton to get cash out of hole in wall before heading up the A683 and then the B6480 to Wray for a brew at Bridge House Farm Tearooms. Once I got to the Tearoom, I found John Gilbert thinking about putting bike back in his car, as know one turn up for his ride over the Salter Fell Road which had been advertise on the Rough-Stuff Fellowship Website, he agree to join me in the tearoom for brew and said that I was not going over Salter Fell Road with him, so we decided to have ride up to Botton Bridge at top of the Hindburn Valley. Once you got off the B6480 the lanes around this part of North Lancashire are quite and delight to ride on and you ride for over a hour before you see a car and this was case has we headed up Cragg Lane passed Cragg Hall and then on through open fields through Birks Farm which dates back to 16th Centenary, we were soon heading up Park House Lane and then following the tarmac over White Moss which was highest point of the ride at 235 meters above sea level before dropping back down into the Hindburn Valley, where we then headed up Botton Road toward Higher Thrushgill for about mile before following the Public Byway down to Botton Bridge. Sometime in the past, the track down to Botton Bridge use to have tarmac surface but still as 3 ton weight limit signs on both sides of the bridge, yes you could legally drive your car across the bridge but would have four wheel drive on it to do so! As the ground was still soaking from night before rain fall, we decide not to follow the public byway to Botton Head and so we followed the tarmac back down the Hindburn Valley through the hamlet of High Ivah before stopping for a bit of lunch on bench in Lowgill. After lunch we continue follow the tarmac down the Hindburn Valley through Mill Houses back to John’s car park outside the Bridge House Farm Tearooms where I said goodbye to him. Photographic can be a bit of selfish hobby when you out on the bike, so change the lens on Pentax K-70 camera to the Tamron 90mm Macro len and decide to take some time, take some photos of early Spring flowers on my route home to Halton. I think best photo that I took was of the Lesser Celandine at side of Back Lane on way out of Wray and others may feel that photo of the cake that I had in the Hornby Post Office Tearooms was a lot better. I had another to goes trying to get that perfect wildflower photo before made back to Halton. You can click here to see photos of 12th July ride to Wennington or you can checkout the What’s New Page to see what’s new on the site and you can also sign up for site’s free weekly newsletter.