Blustery morning in Prestatyn. The sad presence of a closed Pontins waved me off along a path over the golf course through a Haven holiday park with its Burger King and other fast food signs to a lovely path out through the dunes to Talacre. I could see the Point of Ayr lighthouse. I ran out of path before I could get to it.
Southeast along the Flintshire coast by cycle path, road and roadside cycleway. The wind managed to come at me from several directions at once. Flint Castle put me firmly back on Route 5 and it took me down to Shotton.
My mate Andy met me at the Hawarden bridge, guided me up to the border and into Neston on the cycleways treated me to lunch, saw me down to the coast at Parkgate, and waved me off along the Wirral Way.
The Wirral Way is a classic repurposed railway line cycle route. It skirts the east of the peninsula in tree-sheltered tranquillity and delivers me the seven miles to West Kirby’s blustery promenade.
Somewhere on the curve of the coast between West Kirby and Hoylake, I tacked across the wind in a way that I felt it pushing me along when the cycle path joined the promenade opposite the huge red giraffe cranes across the water at the Port of Liverpool.
I sped along the promenade in the sunshine, only occasionally having to slow to negotiate the dangers of sand drifting across the path. Past Leasowe lighthouse, along the Wallasey seafront and onto New Brighton. The seafront around the marine lake and Fort Perch Rock is packed with smiles and ice cream. A few brave souls are braving the water under the careful supervision of RNLI lifeguards.
Twenty minutes and two and a half miles later, I was sitting on the Seacombe Ferry as it made its way across the Mersey to the Gerry Marsden Ferry terminal on Liverpool’s impressive waterfront.
Liverpool offered some functional cycling routes out through the docks. Red traffic lights on the cycleway gave me a few moments to appreciate the Stanley Dock lifting bridge before green meant I could cross. Soon the cycleway became a shared use pavement up to Crosby.
There was a fair at Crosby. I got to see it twice, because the seafront path was covered in sand and not cyclable and I needed to find another way round. A couple of miles up the road at Blundellsands, the cycle path was clear and the wind was with me.
I stopped for coffee in Formby and eight miles later the Sefton coastal path delivered me to Southport.
Day totals: 75 miles, 866ft of elevation gained
Tour totals: 1,384 miles, 57,718ft of elevation gained