Sunday 6 January 2013

6/1/13 - The Seat of Learning

Distance - 5 Miles
Geocaches - 11
Walk from - Country Walking Magazine - Spring 2011
Christmas is now officially over and Ellie needs to be returned to Manchester for her 2nd term at university.  The boot is fuller than on her journey down, so I can only assume that Santa was very kind to her.

It was nice of her to keep me company until we hit the straight bits on the motorway.  The last sound I heard before pulling into Hulme Asda at 10:50am was "How do you make these seats go down?".

The supermarket doesn't open till 11am.  It felt like queuing for the Boxing day sales.  She does the big shop and then I drop her off at her flat and get a glimpse of what the next generation "Captains of Industry" are learning whilst they rack up 9K per year in student debts.

Bloody Students


If you can zoom in closely to the top right of the charts, there is some lovely animation.  And Chloe has a reputation.
 
The great thing about my hobby is that I can combine long haul taxi services with walking and geocaching.  But where to go in the big city?  From the amount of people I see on this walk, Mancs love nothing better than a nice walk around some water.

Country Walking magazine provides a perfect little five miler and a bonus is that there are a lot of Geocaches.  Park up at the visitor centre, and make friends with a terrier puppy with very sharp teeth.
 
The walking is very straightforward and water is never out of sight.  First off, its a circumvention of Sale Water Park.
  
 

Manc's Day Off
Whats Mancs do for fun
 
There are so many people out today, it makes the caching hard.  The first one cannot be attempted as there are a family having a big old chat at GZ.  Cache 2 is found, but is guarded by a hoody with a rottweiler.  A bit of a mexican standoff ensued, as neither of us would move on.  I hope he wasn't taking his dog out cottaging.  Eventually, he's off and I get the cache and the TB.
 
The next stretch of water is the River Mersey - surprisingly fast flowing and with a choice of an upper of lower path.  There's even a bridge for me to get the cache on the opposite side.
 
 
Cachetastic
Should have tucked my shirt in
 
Follow the river upstream.  Two more caches before I cross over at Jackson's Bridge.  There is a cache under here, but too many people around.  Continue on the other side a couple more micros, before hitting the next body of water - Chorton Water Park.
 
Again, loads of people - on bikes, horses or just walking.  Another four caches around here and then follow the mersey back up to Jackson Bridge and the pub.
 
 
Jackons Boat
Great facilities to end the walk - we must be close to Moss Side
 
And there are less people at the bridge, so I make like a troll and grab it.

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