Having now walked this cycleway from Caton and through Lancaster we felt obliged to backtrack from Conder Green to our last finishing point which was not accessible by car. It remains to be seen how far we can pursue this project.
During my boat building period I was keen to build one of the smaller Wharram catamarans. James Wharram is a designer of catamarans which have become a kind of cult surrounding theories about Polynesian sailing achievements and the like - he is still batting at 91 - see Wikipedia:
click for link
Wharram sells the plans for home build using simple plywood and epoxy methods well within the abilities of the relatively inexperienced for the smaller versions. Where we parked at Conder Green a large Wharram was sitting there on the grass looking dilapidated and forlorn. I wonder how they get these boats into navigable water from these estuarine locations - the river Conder flows past here but it would not be easy to get this big boat down to the sea proper.
We trekked the one kilometre to our previous finishing point then returned and carried on south over the River Conder bridge from where we watched a lady with a couple of dogs having great fun in the fast flowing water below.
There was another decent sized two masted yacht stranded at a crazy angle with its twin bilge keels embedded in the mud on banking high above the small channel below. We thought it may have drifted there by accident - it didn't look like a mooring where a responsible owner would have wanted to leave it.
Our time limit was up as we arrived at the outskirts of Glasson Dock village, but we were alongside a road with a convenient carpark opposite for our resumption of the next section.
Close to the aforementioned Wharram I noticed a memorial plaque to Christine Ann Dawson but Internet searching revealed nothing despite this being a more prominent and larger memorial than usual - one wonders.
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| We have had two Springers in the family - what a happy and fun loving breed always ready for action and especially with water and MUD! |
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| Would you have left your boat like this? |
I found a Christine Ann Dawson of Ramsgreave. Date of death and age match but there was nothing of particular note in the obituary Conrad. Would the location make sense? You might think that I had too much time on my hands which is far from the truth.
ReplyDeleteafoot - I found that also from your prompt - thanks. But not much of interest as you say - There is a Ramsgreave Hall and the area is north of Blackburn, Lancs which is a modest car drive away from the plaque at Conder Green. If she had been of some note there would have been more to find - we can't win them all.
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity regarding your time limit for these walks: Do you set a timer or do you just walk with an eye on your watch? If the latter, do you not sometimes get carried away and walk further than intended?
ReplyDeleteI often nip out for a walk by myself early in the morning, during which I usually listen to an audiobook. I make sure I'm not longer than I've told Mick I'll be by setting a sleep-timer on the book so I know when to turn back. It doesn't always work - sometimes the path I'm on is too interesting and I ignore the turn-around call.
Gayle - our nominal target has been four miles, but recently we have used time instead - one hour each way, which on the flat is more or less the same thing. Our turning point is more determined by how Pete feels, the weather, and the incidence of upness and also the driving time from the parked car back to Café Ambio, so no precise timing is used. Having launched into this explanation I have cut more of the detail short because it has given me an idea for a slightly different blog post from the usual walkles versions.
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