Due to the title you may be forgiven for thinking this was a ramble; the ramblings are just me wittering on about our ride to Elton Reservoir in Bury from Moses Gate near Farnworth.The weather forecast for our ride was quite mixed, sunshine and showers, and not too hot either; June wasn’t brilliant, early July isn’t looking any better either at present.The only uphill section of our route is the climb out of Moses Gate Country Park through the site of the Darcy Lever gravel pits, now a nature reserve. This also coincides with the only muddy stretch of the ride too; was it better to ride straight through the worst and deepest section just above the River Croal, or to try and ride around it. I went straight down the middle hoping for some traction and perhaps hard ground under the mud; it was about 150mm deep with glutinous slime, just about the height to the ankle cuffs of my boots if I had to put a foot down. Others took a more circuitous route, but we all made it through, and mud free too.
Once we neared Leverhulme Park our route was well surfaced and level all the way to Bradley Fold Garden Centre where we enjoyed our elevenses: there was no early cuppa at Moses Gate, it lacks a café.
Continuing towards Bury and Black Lane we reached the end of the navigable stretch of dis-used railway track bed at Moss Shaw Farm. Beyond here the new house building project on the erstwhile rail junction is progressing apace, and on completion the off-road route through to Bury should be a step closer to fruition. We noticed that the fence had been dislodged where we left the permanent way, but it was not sufficient for us to get our cycles through; we also tried the path from the access road into the new housing, unfortunately this was still blocked too.
Riding on the track through Brook Bottom and Doffer Fold we reached Old Hall Farm on the banks of Elton Reservoir, our half way point, and where we turned west towards the canal on NCN6 to Radcliffe. The cobbled sections of the towpath were quite slippery in places due to a recent shower.
Staying on the towpath until we reached the Meccano Bridge at Nob End we diverted towards Clammerclough and took the track through the nature reserve back into Moses Gate Country Park where we crossed the Avon Bridge over the River Croal, to end today’s meet.
The photos I took may be viewed here on our Flickr account.
The weather was overcast at times, warmer than forecast, and we only suffered a couple of minute’s rain as we approached the environs of Elton Reservoir.
Thankyou all for making this another good day of Fellowship, see you soon, Brian.