We set off from home today and I decided to take a different route up to George's Lane than usual, as a bit of a trial before the road is closed later in the month. We ran down to Green Lane and then up and across to Tiger's Clough. We then ran all the way up Tiger's Clough, coming out onto George's Lane. As there were no signs on the gate to George's Lane re the road closure, I'm hoping this means this route will be OK when the works start. We ran up the Pike and I wanted to get a Strava PB but, unfortunately, Ruby had other ideas and kept sniffing so eventually I let her off her lead so I could get ahead of her but I didn't manage to beat my PR as I had already lost too much time, which is a shame really as I was feeling quite energetic tonight (though my pace won't evidence this - Ruby was sniffing EVERYTHING tonight).
We ran down the steps off the Pike and along George's Lane/Belmont Road (I'm never quite sure where the change from one to the other is) to the Pigeon Tower and then carried on along Belmont Road until we reached Rivington Road. After turning right onto the road and down it a bit, we then went along the path on the left which runs alongside the road all the way into Belmont. It was ridiculously muddy along here and Ruby sank to her neck a couple of times.
We got to where the path goes into a field and... stopped dead! LOADS of cows! They were all across the path through to the next field too, so we would have had to get within a metre of them to get through. Not going to happen.
I didn't want to head back along the path we had come to though because it was so boggy I didn't want Ruby sinking anymore. Plus, Duncan was picking me up in Belmont on his way home from work so we could drive into Bolton to Decathlon.
I could see a gate across the way which went out onto Rivington Road, but this involved going down a very overgrown steep descent and across a stream but it was pretty much the only option so off we went, being really careful where we put our feet because I was worried about trampling on a bird's nest or something. Eventually we picked up a trod so I felt much happier as I knew we wouldn't trample anything. We crossed the stream and got to the gate, which I had to pick Ruby up and put her over because it was locked.
We then ran along the road, past the gravel car park and along the wooden bridges down to the Blue Lagoon. We then ran down the road and met Duncan in the Black Horse car park.
My question is - what's with all the cows? They seem to be everywhere at the minute and there aren't usually many of them, at least not that I have seen. There are usually lots of sheep, but not cows. Duncan thinks they might have been put there as land management for grazing.
Total distance - 4.8 miles
http://www.strava.com/activities/149487963/overview
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