Important Info

Planned kilometres: 18 (cummulative 652)

Kilometres walked: 10 (cummulative 690)

% Completed (based on 1800km trip): 38.3%

Weather: Sunshine

Pubs visited: The Excelsior, The Swan Inn

Pints: 3 (cummulative 82)

Kms per pint: 8.4

Blisters: 0 (cummulative 3)

Liverpool to Talke Pits

This morning we had a look around Liverpool and visited the cathedral and The Cavern Club (made famous by the Beatles).

After lunch and a beer with Todd and Stacey, I caught the train to Stoke on Trent, so I could do some walking in the afternoon and get another spare day which I could spend in Manchester next weekend. The train trip started okay, but there were signal issues on the track which significantly slowed the train and only gave me 4 minutes to get my connection at Crewe. I was lucky that the connecting train was on a close platform as I only just made my connection, which saved me waiting an hour for the next train.

 

The canal walking today went past lots of relics from the Staffordshire pottery industry. The Cliff Vale bottle kilns were the first thing I saw, and they were a surprise as they were on the side of the canal between 2 apartment blocks.

After that there were multiple old pottery factories from Middleport Pottery which is a site you can visit to many other buildings slowly decaying.

 

Today’s canal walk ended at the Harecastle tunnel which was built in 1820’s to transport coal to for the pottery kilns. The tunnel is 2.7 kms long and can only be traversed by canal boat and it takes approx. 40 minutes to traverse. They take boats through in one direction in groups and I talked to a couple of people who had done it and they said the tunnel is very low and claustrophobic. For people like me the only option is to walk the roads to meet the canal the other end of the tunnel.

 

My hotel for the night was at a village called Talke Pits which was part way on the walk to the other end of the tunnel, so today was a nice short walk. Ten km’s is now just a short stroll