Day 122: Waterloo to Southport
Distance: 17.25 miles
Ascent: 447 feet
Weather: Sunny Spells
Accommodation: SCarisbrick Hotel, Southport
I set of from Waterloo at a slightly leisurely 8:45, and headed back down to the beach and onto the promenade in front of Crosby. This is the location of Antony Gormley’s Another place, a series of 100 cast iron life size sculptures spread over 3 kilometres of beach. Each individual one was very impressive, and the whole collection put together was amazing. It was low tide as I walked past them and it would have been very interesting to see them slowly engulfed by the tide.
The path followed the promenade and then headed through the dunes until skirting the military firing range near Hightown. There was a lot of firing going on here not that far away and the noise was very loud, it made for quite an eerie backdrop to the walk. It was not long till I reached Formby and I arrived just before my Dad arrived on the train. We had a quick lunch and then were on our way.
We headed down through a little wood and then the impressive dunes before finally reaching the expansive flat beach where even though it was almost high tide there was plenty of room to walk. The next 4 miles along the beach were nice and easy, and through the sea mist Blackpool tower and rollercoaster were just about visible in the distance where I will be in a couple of days. In fact at times when I took a photo I was struggling to catch up with my dad as he was flying along.
We joined the tarmacked cycle path at the Pontins in Ainsdale, and this path took us all the way into Southport. This is a large town and though there were nice areas it had the air of a slightly deteriorating seaside resort. The kids amusements parks though I’m sure still exciting for kids looked quite worn down, some of the old grander hotels had been left to go a bit, and not much effort had been made with a lot of the shop/restaurant fronts. But despite all this it felt like quite a busy place, thriving mainly with the older generation.
As my dad was in town, I was lucky to have a bed in the Scarisbrick Hotel, and after a dinner in which Devon also joined it was time for a fairly early night.
A fairly short diary, for a fairly simple, flat though not unscenic day.
