Ambling around Anglezarke

Anglezarke is a rural parish in Bolton, Lancashire. The name apparently derives from something or other Norse.

The Anglezarke Amble is a rather nice winter LDWA event. The full distance covers 24 miles of hill and moorland around the west pennines, looking down on some former industrial landscape.

We got there in reasonable time from home, and parked on the far side of the causeway across the reservoir from Rivington. The race starts at the primary school in Rivington. Covid regs still in force, we covered our faces while we popped into registration, picked up our tallies then went back outside. A quick trip back to the van to pick up some forgotten item, and back to the start.

We bumped into Karen at the start and had a quick chat. We saw other Runfurther regulars later in the day too.

Our plan for the day was largely walking - Claire is just getting back into longer distances and wanted a longish day out at a gentle pace. I was happy to spend the time on my feet so I'd loaded my pack with kit for a brisk walk.

Setting out in a very low key way ("it's 9 o'clock now, so you'd all best get going") we headed up Rivington Pike past the historic Rivington barn, that we completely failed to notice. Bimbling around in the woods with the pack we eventually made it to the folly on top of the hill, and headed back down again (retrieving and returning a lost hat on the way).

A track section led to a cafe and CP1, but we kept on going and started heading up the also-historic Winter Hill. This was an interesting spot for me, as I'd been reading about the access protest in the 19th C. Now home to an enormous transmitter and lots of warnings about falling ice. Daz Graham caught us up here and stopped for a chat, then trotted off into the distance in spite of his aching achilles.

Dropping down the other side of Winter Hill, Claire was reminiscing about the winter fell race 'Mister Sparkles', and the whole track being ice bound. Today there was no sign of ice and we were able to make good time down the hill.

The cut off for the long route is 90 minutes at CP3(?) which turned out to be unmanned. We were just about inside the cut off after a spell of walking and kept on at it through some very boggy fields.

That really set the theme for the day. Boggy fields, hill tops, spectacular views of the surrounding areas. As we dropped quickly towards the road CP in the woods Claire suddenly disappeared from beside me - her foot had caught on a stone and she'd fallen flat on the spot. She picked herself up, considerably shaken and we made our way slowly to the CP for a cup of tea.

Tea did the trick nicely, and we got going again after a few minutes. By now the day was wearing on and getting cold and we kept the pace up towards the end, over the last swampy climb and down towards Rivington again. The last stretch along the side of the reservoirs we were trotting fairly steadily with occasionally bouts of walking. We came in around 5.5 hours, quite quick considering how much we'd walked.

We handed in our tallies, purchased the rather lovely sew on badges from the finish and got changed, then took our tokens up to the village tea room for delicious soup and tea.

Definitely the most attractive cloth badge I've had from a race