You can always rely on Brian Mac to come up with a route for a ride from his local starting point at Ness Gardens. Despite the fact that he wasn’t there, today was no exception as I had downloaded a ride he had led back in 2011. It wasn’t a particularly long ride but with heavy rain forecast for the evening we didn’t want to be out too late.
As I cycled up to Ness I wasn’t expecting a large turnout. The more strenuous riders were off on the annual 100-mile special and a number of riders were off on holiday. However 5 regulars turned up. These were Bryan, Dave H, Steve H, Steve T and myself. We were joined be a new rider, another Brian, who I had met while cycling across the marshes. He said he had heard of our group and had thought about joining us sometime so I persuaded him to join us today.
The six of us set off northwards heading into Neston where we turned right to cross the A540 and on to the village of Raby. A left here took us on through the pretty village of Thornton Hough. Brian’s route was a figure-of-eight and just beyond the village we came to the crossover point. Instead of carrying straight on we turned right so that we were now following Brian’s route in reverse. This brought us to Brimstage where we turned left and headed up to Storeton. Beyond Storeton we were on to the Lever Causeway before dropping down towards Rock Ferry where we hit the Wirral Circular Trail. This would take us around the North Wirral Coast.
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| Mersey Ferry |
Photographs by Bryan Wade
We now followed the trail past the Woodside and Seacombe ferry terminals and up the coast past the Egerton Ferry pub. This had been our lunch stop on the original ride but it was not yet noon so we carried on to New Brighton. Here we decided on Wetherspoons as our lunch stop. Probably not the best choice but the company and the conversation were good.
After lunch we carried on along the coastal path, ploughing our way through the sand drifts in places, until we got back onto tarmacked roads at Meols. Here we turned inland and cycled through the villages of Greasby, Irby and Pensby and back to the crossover point at Thornton Hough. We turned right here and headed back across the A540 and down towards Parkgate. Before we reached it Bryan spotted a road off to the left (Wood Lane) that was signed as a cycle route to Neston. We hadn’t been along it before so we took the opportunity now. Unmade for the most part, but passable, it eventually brought us back into Neston.
From here it was back the way we had come towards Ness Gardens but before we got there we dropped down to the coast again and along to Net’s Café. After a well-earned cup of tea (and a cake, of course) we all went our separate ways although for four of us it was back across the marshes towards Chester. A round trip of 37 miles from Ness or around 60 from Chester.
See route map and/or gpx file download.
TC
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