Day 30 – Ormskirk to Liverpool
Actual distance 29.56Km or 18.37miles (or 3,879.3 wingspans of a Liver Bird)
Total Ascent 141m (or the height of 25.7 Liver Birds)
Staying with 15th Fairfield Scout Group, Oakvale
We woke this morning to the gentle sounds of the countryside, and leisurely enjoyed the gorgeous pastry’s that Vicky had kindly bought us for breakfast. Ollie was clearly tired and needed waking at 09:30 (something that never happens at home!).
We decided to slightly change our start point today to the O’Malley’s home as this meant we didn’t need to load/ unload the bikes or drive anywhere first thing. As we were actually slightly north of yesterdays end point and would be covering the same physical distance we felt this was an acceptable modification!
We headed off along the road towards the Leeds & Liverpool Canal – our chosen path to Liverpool. The path was far, far easier today. There was a small section early on where the track was impossible to navigate without getting caught by the overgrown stinging nettles and a few small sections of mud but in general there was a clearly defined easy to use path that was pleasant to cycle on. We cycled past a statue marking where the construction of the canal began, a pub with a throne in the garden and some amusing frogs. We also saw several herons and were entertained by some very noisy moorhen chicks.
We reached Maghull in good time and stopped at a pub on the canal side for a quick soft drink before jumping back on the bikes. During our break we looked at the map again and made a team decision that we would temporarily leave the canal and cycle down the B5422 for 5km as this detour took a good 6km off our distance. Frustratingly we found another road closure just before we were due to get back on the canal, but with a little investigating saw the pavement was still open, so we pushed the bikes for a short while to save us cycling further.
We got back on the canal path at top of Litherland. The track from this point all the way into Liverpool was lovely and really easy to cycle on. There was an a lovely area decorated with multiple hopscotch courses and alphabet hopping games, stretches of picturesque riverbanks and wild flowers, and sections passing by old mysterious empty factories. We were therefore able to make really quick progress and reached the centre of Liverpool by 2pm – our earliest finish yet. We found Sarah, Dan, Abi and Moby on the water front as they had kindly brought the car into Liverpool for us.
After eating our lunch we had time to do a little essential shopping before driving to the 15th Fairfield Scout Group where we are staying this evening. We were greeted there by their Group Scout Leader, several Leaders and a few of their Cubs and Scouts who all warmly welcomed us. Ollie happily joined in with a game of dodge ball whilst the rest of us chatted. The team had very generously bought us fantastic mugs to mark our stay with them, and had even got Ollie and Hattie a belated/ slightly early birthday cake!
We were joined a little later by Jennie’s cousin Gina and her partner Ben who had cooked dinner for us which was absolutely amazing. We chatted about our journey thus far, and the Ollie got to play his guitar for Ben and had a little lesson. He’s gone to bed a very happy boy this evening!
