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BB2405
: If You Don't Know Where You're Going.....
Wednesday
7th February 2024
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The
beach car park was flooded by
heavy overnight rain and so
we gathered at the parking bays
along the Arnside Promenade
wondering which route to walk.
For
some reason I found myself humming
George Harrison’s Any
Road
–
If you don’t know where you’re
going,
any road will take
you there
-
a concise summary of Lewis Carroll’s
clever exchange between Alice
and the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland.
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However,
we weren’t left wondering long as after
a brief discussion with Stan, TV Mike produced
a map, traced a route with pointed finger
and off we set - not over the Knott but
along the shoreline towards Silverdale with
Grubbins Wood on our left.
It
was a glorious morning with clear skies
and Grange reflecting onto the calm waters
of the Bay from the far shore.
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Soon
we were passing the Bob-in-Café
from where Cedric Robinson (the
late Queen's late Guide to the
Sands, not the Black Radical)
would commence the walk across
the expanse of the sands to
Kents Bank.
We
wondered if the cross bay walks
still took place.
Soon
we were in single file along
the narrow coastal track that
runs above the low cliffs of
Arnside and Park Points.....
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.....
looking out over the vastness of the Bay.
A
flock of waders was feeding at the distant
water's edge.
We
wondered what they were. Mike produced his
binoculars and pronounced them oystercatchers
- with red bills, redshanks - with red shanks
and possibly a few dunlins - with white
wing bars.
Unusually
for the BOOTboys
we had a break for elevenses at a clearing
near Far Arnside. Tony was able to take
close-ups of a robin in a bush which then
flew out, landing near Robert, who wondered
if he could coax the bird to feed from his
hand – very close, but not quite!
We
walked through the edge of a well-kept park
of lodges and caravans and where we believed
Don had spent happy holidays in his youth
and we wondered which caravan had been his
parents’.
Then
on past Middlebarrow Plain and Wood to Arnside
Tower where Tony explained why it was probably
not a Pele Tower as the openings at low
level would have made it too difficult to
defend.
If
it wasn’t a Pele Tower, we wondered what
else it could be.
A
fallen tree in Arnside Knott Wood provided
comfortable seating for lunch, where Robin
sitting in the leaves with Holly, was visited
by another cheeky robin. Can I get it to
feed from my hand he wondered – very close,
but not quite! We then walked via the "headless
giraffe tree" up to the Knott and the
trig point where workers appeared to be
clearing undergrowth, but why, we wondered,
but came to no sensible conclusion.
And
so along the grassy path at the edge of
Hagg Wood and back to Arnside.
There
was no wondering now . We knew where
we were going – it was the road that led
to the Albion for a well-earned beer. Another
wonderful day out!
Robin,
Wednesday 7th February 2024
Afternote:
The cross-bay walks do continue,
under the sure guidance of Michael Wilson
who took over from Cedric who retired in
2007.
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