Monday 25 May 2009

Day 7: Chester to Slaidburn

Ribble Valley. Do you know the joke about Country & Western in Preston...?

Leaving Chester what was for us relatively early (before 9:00), John and I said goodbye to Damian who was heading back to Bristol. A flat run up the Wirral saw us making good time heading for the Mersey Ferry. Until, that is, we met up with Alan the International Cycling Coach, Tourer, Film-Maker and generally all-round Bike Guru. Now John and I are generally a polite and patient pair but were unable to shake off Alan until he'd imparted his wisdom regarding routes, saddle adjustments and the like and he'd extracted our life stories from us. Then we were made to repeat everything we'd just told him as the subjects of his latest fly-on-the-bus-shelter documentary with a gruelling interview at a, well, bus shelter. Finally extracting ourselves, we made it to the Mersey Ferry crossing just in time for it to start raining. Nothing like Liverpool in the rain to cheer the spirits, and the 2 miles of dockside rubbish dump which we got to cycle alongside was an added bonus. A couple more hours of ever increasing rain saw us at the surprisingly pretty Southport, a town on the coast which seems to be mostly owned by a Mr Sillcott. At least, the Funland is his, as are most of the restaurants including the chippie we went to. At least over lunch the rain stopped, so we cracked on along a very unmemorable A road all the way to an even more unmemorable Preston. Luckily, we weren't there long and within 10 miles we were following the spectacular Ribble Valley into the Forest of Bowland under late afternoon sunshine. The world was once again a happy place. Arriving at the village of Slaidburn, the contrast from that morning couldn't have been greater.




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