Road trip - Day 2

Soooo.................... today was ‘big long walk day’.  We’ve walked more than 15 miles of the 'Lancashire Coastal Path.  Freckleton to Blackpool.


Got the bus from Blackpool to Freckleton.  And have never come across such a grumpy bus driver?? 
Ann really wanted to tweet #No.68stagecoachbusBlackpooltoPrestonaround10am,grumpybusdriver.  But she didn’t?!  Ann asked him which stop we should get off to walk the coastal path.  ‘Grumpy bus driver’ didn’t know.  So Ann said we’d get off at the ‘war memorial’ stop in Freckleton (because that was mentioned on the bus timetable) and could he let us know which stop it was.  ‘Grumpy bus driver’ was pretty grumpy to other people who got on the bus too.  And then when we got to the bus stop in Freckleton (which wasn’t labelled ‘war memorial’ ‘cos Ann had been checking the names on the bus stops) ‘grumpy bus driver’ just turned around, looked at us and said, ‘Get off’.

So we got off.  And Ann looked at the map.  And we found where to go to start our walk.  So who cares that the grumpy bus driver didn’t help us???  The first 6 miles of the walk were really hard.  We were walking along the edge of the ‘River Ribble Estuary’ and it was really wet and muddy.  And at one point we were confronted by a load of cows who were giving us the evils.  So Ann said, ‘Molly, we’re not going to walk through them’.  They might crush us to death and no-one knows where we are so we could be lying dead on the mud flats of the River Ribble forever.  So we climbed over a barbed wire fence and walked a little way along a field that we shouldn’t have been in. But the good thing was; I found a manky old tennis ball and I carried it for about 4 miles.  Woooohoooo!!!  And I also wallowed in loads of mud which turned my tummy completely black.  Woooohoooo!!

And then, after about 6 miles, when we reached civilisation in Lytham, Ann said, ‘Molly, we are going to stop for a coffee in first place we come to.' 
Lytham & St Anne’s seafront are rubbish places for coffee.  We pounded the promenades for miles & miles and not a coffee shop in sight. So we stopped a couple of times and sat on a bench so that both of us could have a drink of water.  #justcallusscruffyoldtramps

And then we pretty much walked along the beach for the whole of the way from St Anne’s to Blackpool.  And then do you know what we did?....................  We popped into a bar on the seafront so that Ann could have a glass of white wine in the sunshine. She’d given up the coffee idea by this point??! She wanted to see the Blackpool sunset but after 15 miles of walking was too tired to hang around until after 6pm. 

So we’re back in our hotel, I’ve gobbled up all my dinner in super quick time and am now snoozing in my bed.

And Ann’s had a very scrummy, yummy, Chinese for dinner.  And she’s snoozing too?!!

We’ve got another big long walk to do tomorrow..................

...............And then I wonder if any of you can guess where we’re off to for Day 3 of our road trip???
PS - We've put some pics into the 'extras' bit.  Still don't really agree with the 'extras' but ho hum, it's a good record of what we've been up to.