Day Eight: Northwich to Lancaster

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Most End to Enders have to find a route from North Cheshire to the Lake District. Both the Sustrans and Cicerone guides go through East Lancashire and the Trough of Bowland.

That was our original plan, with an overnight stop in Waddington.

I am quite sure that this is a lovely route (in parts). I am also quite sure that navigating Manchester and Blackburn before hitting some pretty heavy hills could be soul destroying. The advice of one friend who'd done the route was, 'it nearly broke us'. So fairly late on I decided to change the route and go through West Lancashire. This also meant that we could have a relatively short day into Ambleside, where we were meeting up with friends.

The revised route worked well, but it's fair to say that between Golborne and Preston is something of a post-industrial 'No-Man's Land' criss-crossed by motorways.

It is worth noting that the first part of the route, through Northwich, is not particularly easy to navigate and we abandoned it for roads. Also, don't bother stopping in Wigan town centre for lunch, there's a Wetherspoon's just out of town and right on the route which  is probably your best bet.