Sea
holly
Masked
crab
Knott
End ferry
|
As
it was high tide, we walked along the main front with its casinos and
“amusement” arcades, like a miniature Las
Vegas, and of course the tower. Tourists were riding
in pony and trap. (“They didn’t have
them in the old days” – Val.) Later they
had got out the donkeys on the beach, too, and they did have those in
the old days. The North Pier had a
George Formby exhibition, but we decided to give that a miss. The old “Princess Alice” tram was being
used for training recruits to connect the beam to the electric wires. We carried on along a concrete embankment
that was remarkably undecorated and seemed to go on forever, along the North Shore and through Bispham. The
Castle Hotel at Norbreck provided a slight change of scenery, but no effort
had gone into planting up the front to make it look pleasant. After a small green at Anchorsholme we were
in Cleveleys, a resort of no better aspect, and a beach of pebbles with sand
below and a constant series of groynes.
There was frequent sea rocket at the top of the beach. We walked up to the main street to seek
lunch. It was a market day and crowded
with shoppers. We ate among them at a café whose snacks all turned out to be
huge. One look at the size of the
vanilla slices was enough to decide against such indulgence. The Bispham and Cleveleys Kitchens menu had
a long history of the establishment. The
food was decent and set us up for the remainder of the walk, along more
concrete embankments, although we did descend for a while to walk the beach
again. Here we vaulted over groynes and splashed through the still wet sand,
as the tide receded, leaving masked crabs stranded. We passed beneath Rossall School,
but could not see Fleetwood at all as we walked past it, emerging at a golf
course on the NW corner of the Fylde peninsula. Here we were able to gain a sandy path
beside the golf course as a change from concrete bashing, and to see a few
more plants and butterflies as the sun started to emerge at last, and
kestrels found this a promising hunting-place. (It was remarkable how many plants had been
able to establish themselves even in the crevices of the concrete walls –
like buck’s horn plantain and sea campion.)
Large stands of horseradish gave off an unmistakable scent, followed
by the sickly-sweet odour of Japanese rose bushes. We began to see sea holly, which increased
in abundance as we rounded the corner and walked east along the front of
Fleetwood, where it became the dominant vegetation on much of the sand. We passed the marine lake (which had no birds
other than mute swans) and reached the Marine Hall, where we had ice creams
whilst watching a women’s flat-green bowls match. It was then only a short walk past the pier
to the ferry terminal (to Knott End, crossing the Wyre estuary), our final
destination for the day. A
conveniently situated information centre was able to tell us the best way
back to Blackpool, which was by tram from a
stop immediately outside. Doh! This took an hour at a very amiable
pace. We found that Fleetwood as a
resort had a more human and pleasant feel compared to Blackpool
and Cleveleys. Across Morecambe Bay we could see the Lakes coast and
factories at Barrow, as well as Heysham nuclear power station.
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Cleveleys
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Derelect swimming-pool,
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Tram and trainees, tower
terminus
Cleveleys
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