Warrington Wolves Rugby League stadium. This is really Rugby League territory - the road signs all day have read like the RL fixtures - Warrington 15 Wigan 6, St Helens 10 Leigh 12.
The Manchester Ship Canal at Warrington.I again managed to reach the target for today - the village of Standish which is just north of Wigan. This means that I have chalked up another county. However there is some controversy about whether I am in Lancashire or Greater Manchester (or perhaps both). After some Wikipedia research I have decided that I am in Lancashire. By the same logic I will also retrospectively delete the West Midlands from my list of counties. The total number of counties therefore remains at 11.
Despite yesterday's misgivings Warrington was quite a pleasant town. It did however a seemingly endless "out of town area" to the north of the town. What seemed to be miles of car showrooms, burger bars, retail parks etc - it was almost like travelling through a town in the US. The parts of Wigan that I saw were more like I expected it to be - but it was brightened up by the bright sunshine this afternoon after the morning mist had burned off.
Most of the walk today was along the A49 which in large is marked as a Roman road - which brings echos of Bath and Cirencester (which seems a very long time ago!). I have however not been able to find a name for this road - any ideas?
Tomorrow I hope to reach a few miles north of Preston. Talking about "north" I looked at an atlas today and was very pleased to see that I am now further north than,for example, Manchester,Liverpool, Wales and Sheffield. This sounds impressive to me, not that a total of 435 miles doesn't sound a long way. If things go to plan I hope to reach the symbolic half way mark on Friday or possibly early on Sunday. Everything will be downhill from then on (except the hills of course)!
Today's KBW is to Ceidiog Hughes who has emailed me the pictures from the celebration on Sunday. I will include some of these on the blog on the next rest day which is scheduled for Saturday.
"If I could not walk far and fast, I think that I should just explode and perish." - Charles Dickens
Cheers
Keith
