WWW - Reelers Trail and Houghton Section

Today was a solo adventure on a second visit to the Witton Weavers Way. The plan was to do the Reelers Trail and also pick up the Houghton Section. Setting off from the village of Abbey and picking the Reelers Trail up at the village pub I headed off in a anti-clockwise direction around the Reelers Trail picking up the odd traditional cache on the way. Following the cache trail I passed Roddlesworth Reservoir heading down and across the dam face towards Head Over Heels, should be renamed arse over tit in this case but I managed to stay upright. After finding this cache it was then back up to the path above around the reservoir which was a mission on its own. Note to self, don't leave your trekking pole in the car when its been raining and you are likely to encounter mud.  It was now back to the main job and the caches of The Legend. A short walk among the trees and 3 more caches found before heading north and uphill. After this it was then on towards Tockholes and this is where my latest purchase came in very handy. It was out with the OS map to figure out which way to head. I did take the wrong path at first but soon corrected this by walking past some small cottages and then down the road toward Old School Lane. Here I went left and again it was only for the paper map that I found my way. A stomp across the fields and another cache found and it was back on tarmac and the other end on Tockholes from where I was before. I made the quick walk up the lane to collect a cache in Tockholes - No 3 of the treat series before back tracking to return to the Reelers Trail. It wasn't long before I made it to the M65 and the noise of the traffic thundering pass. Between here and reaching Cherry Tree I made one mistake with my navigation and only realised this when I came upon a sign saying No Public Access, a quick check of the map and it was back the way I came before rejoining the path and making my way towards Broken Stone Road. On the farm track up to Broken Stone Road I passed a ewe with her new born lamb that still had its umbilical cord attached. A quick photo session and then back on the trial.

On reaching Cherry Tree the weather changed to the normal rain so it was on with the waterproof pants which paid off on the final leg of the trail when the heavans opened up. I walked along the road to the Leeds Liverpool Canal and continued down the towpath. I had set my GPSr to find Riverside Regeneration Land and this was going to be my downfall in completing the Reelers Train but as I wandered down the towpath I checked my GPSr only to realise that I had just passed Industrail Zone so I had to turn round and go back, luckily it was only by about 500ft. I gracefully hopped up the wall and soon found the cache. It was then back off along the canal for one more cache before heading off onto the Houghton Section. This was to be a very testing walk along the banks on the River Darwen. After finishing the Houghton Section it was back to the Reelers Trail walking around Hoghton Towers Estate and along the Canal picking up Gruffys NW Nutters cache on route. On getting back to the Reelers Trail it was over the bridge and along the side of the canal for the next two caches before dragging my feet uphill towards the M65 again. It was now the final slog back to Abbey Village and the car. So eight more caches to go, mud, river crossings, mud, hills and did I metion mud. On the approch to the Reelers Trail Cache I had my only fall on the day and went flat out on the hill side. The good thing about this was when I picked myself up I spotted the cache on the other side of the fence in its hide. 

The rain started to come down heavey now so all I wanted to do was get back to the car and head home for a cup of tea. So after a grulling 14 miles and a total time out of over 8 hours I made it back to the start with a total of 39 finds and two more parts of the Witton Weavers Way completed. I have upload the track from my GPSr to Wikilo and that can be viewed here

I think I may wait for the weather to improve before tackling the next section, this had to be the wettest caching day I have had, but it was fun in parts.