Ride of Tuesday 14th July 2020 – with a Nautical Flavour

This is my second and final report in the series of two and it has a Nautical Air to it.

Who of us, in these Island Nations of ours, has not followed and been soothed by the progression around our shores, of the Shipping Forecast?* And who has not, as it moves from North to East to South to West and back to North again, relived their cycling or other adventures in reaching the often far outlying lighthouses on rocky headlands, or other coastal points within that Forecast?

Of special memory to me, achieved by the very sturdy push of pedals has been No.1** of the Inshore Report – Cape Wrath; 17 – Land’s End; 23 – the Mull of Galloway; Malin Head (technically an offshore area of sea)***; 31 – Isle of Man (rather flatter terrain, and thanks Anne); 24 – Firth of Clyde (seen from Trans-Atlantic liner in 1965) such an achingly beautiful sea-scape; 27 – Mull of Kintyre, a real toughie but the song carried us onward; Machrihanish (no number); 28 - Ardnamurchan Point, (such ancient geology), and, back to the rowing boat service to Cape Wrath. Beyond all lie our Offshore outer ring of churning sea protection, with names such as Viking, Dogger, Wight, Shannon, Rockall, Bailey, Faeroes.

Well, it was on that Tuesday 14th July that the attendant Brompton was again called to duty to check out our own local share of that Forecast, although for sure we locally lack that romance, isolation and call of the wild of those rocky outcrops mentioned. So it was over the Millennium Bridge and two lefts, to follow the Estuary out to sea, but at the end of the track left for Snatchems, itself a pub of notorious seafaring history, and fortunately, the tide being middling, tyres stayed dry.

Once on the Overton road (but bypassing Overton) a walking opportunity followed up that little hill, then a downhill swoop towards wind turbines and an industrial landscape. Right at the junction and a bit later, certainly not taking the left to Sunderland Point (where years ago I had lead a gamely CTC bunch squelching to this junction from what is called Sambo’s Grave, never forgotten nor forgiven – me, not poor Sambo) onwards to Heysham Head, of the buses’ destination, and past the port junction, for 31 - the Isle of Man. A now well signposted route lead to the café and Half Moon Bay, away from the lorry parks and into an older age, between road and sea, St Patrick’s Chapel, monastery ruins; Druids Altar Stone. Finally out onto the coastal cycle path, glorious sweep of it, and the views: behold the Irish Sea (offshore Forecast) and 22 -  our own Morecambe Bay.

The Midland Hotel, the benighted (locked-down) circus encampment nearby and the turnoff for the cycle track home marked the end of that nautical Shipping Forecast Experience for today.

And all this available to us within a circuit of just 14.5 miles!

Ruth Tanner

*Shipping Forecast BBC Radio 4: 5.33am and 12.48pm

**Numbers given to the Inshore progression round the coast

***Off-shore – out in the deep blue