Outdoor Discoveries

An evening stroll

With all of the computer goings on and the need to give my house a good tidy, I wasn’t able to get away for a longer outing over the weekend. So, I opted for a more freestyle amble on Sunday evening than is my wont. Very unusually for me, maps were left at home as I explored the greener ways, many of them off road cycle paths serving local schools, around Macclesfield town. Most of them were metalled but one took me on an about turn through muddier terrain. Opting to stay on better known thoroughfares after that, I followed the road towards Gawsworth before turning left onto a quiet lane that took me right around that village. While I was minded to stay on tarmac all of the way until I joined the Macclesfield canal near Oakgrove, memories of a previous wander about the area caused me to take a chance and leave the road again to test my memory. It didn’t fail that test as I found my way to and through Danes Moss wood, a Wildlife Trust reserve and part of a cutaway peat bog, to a crossing over the troubled West Coast Mainline to reach the aforementioned canal. That was followed until Gurnett where a towpath closure caused to follow roads from there home; I think that the closure is due to a collapsed wall but it will continue until early October anyway. Though devoid of sunshine, the evening had been fine and pleasant and it would have been foolish to dismiss its possibilities. It is the longer hours of daylight that allows quieter strolls like the one that I enjoyed, making something of the torpor of summer after the wondrous rush that was spring.