Maryport to Workington and Harrington

Today was the first day on which we intended to use the train, in the shape of the Cumbrian Coast Line, to enable us to complete a walk in one direction only rather than essentially retracing our steps, as yesterday. I was ridiculously excited about this, probably because we have not used public transport on walking holidays since before the Pandemic, and neither taking two cars nor walking "there and back" is an entirely satisfactory arrangement. Normally, when making use of public transport on walks, we prefer to park at the end and take public transport back to the beginning, so as to not end up either rushing to catch a bus or a train or having to wait for hours. However, on this occasion we weren't sure how far we would walk; it was also more fuel-efficient to park near our starting point in Maryport than to go on to Workington, Harrington or Parton, our possible end points. So it was Maryport we drove to.

We didn't get off to the most auspicious of starts. We drove to Maryport Station, where I had read that parking is free, only to discover that the station forecourt has only a couple of disabled parking spaces (we later discovered, when leaving the train on our return journey, that there is a station carpark with vehicular access further along Millpot (or Mealpot?) Road, to the northeast of the direct access road to the station. It's even marked on Google Maps, but we had failed to notice this. We tried the car park at Mill Street, only to discover that this is for disc parking and we don't have a disc. At this point we drove straight down to the South Quay Car Park, where we knew we'd have to pay but we also knew would actually exist and very probably have plenty of spaces - it did! (and the cost is not excessive - I think it cost us something between £3 and £4 for 12 hours). The other advantage of parking here is that we were close to the harbour, which is where we had reached yesterday. As when we'd been here yesterday, it was low tide, but we did manage to see the harbour at high tide when we returned to collect the car later in the day (shown).

Maryport is obviously proud of its Roman heritage, down to the word "latrine" spelt out with humorous illuminated letters on the side of the public toilets. From there we walked around Elizabeth Dock, where we had to stop to don waterproofs because it was just starting to rain. Oh dear! However, we were soon back by the coast, watching dog walkers on the beach, the rain didn't really come to much. After half a mile or so of walking, we encountered a sign telling us that because of storm damage the route of the England Coast Path was closed ahead, so we should share the route of Hadrian's Cycleway. Trouble is, we weren't sure where the closure was, or exactly which route of the England Coast Path was affected, thus when we encountered the sign shown on the right, we didn't know whether to follow the high tide route, or to continue straight ahead.

I had a feeling that the high tide route might take us a long way from the coast, so continued straight ahead, initially on a good tarmacked path, passing the Forth Engineering works. However, we reached a bridge over Risehow Beck; the bridge was there but the path the other side was no longer tarmacked, and rather overgrown - and it didn't look promising. We were anxious that if we continued we'd end up on a dead end the "wrong" side of the railway, so we retraced our steps back to the sign shown above and took the high tide route under the railway and to the A596, which we followed into Flimby. Fortunately there was a pavement to walk on, but it's not the most attractive of villages. We passed the station and the site of a former colliery, where there was an attractive memorial.

We took a left-hand fork onto the more minor Ryehill Road and continued past the school and along residential roads. Eventually we reached the older part of the village at Flimby Brow, then turned right onto Church Road. Past St Nicholas Church we entered open country and the views down to the coast were really quite attractive. We said hello to a dog walker before overtaking her, then we took paths which took us back towards the coast. We realised that the weather was improving and we were getting rather hot, so we stopped to take off our waterproof trousers. Things were looking up. We reached the main road again but there was another path opposite, bearing a signpost which indicated that it would take us to the coast path - and it did. When we got to the coast path, we turned left (i.e. south, the direction in which we wanted to go). However, the right-hand option was boarded over, so it looks as if the route we'd followed was the only alternative to walking on the beach, and it had provided interesting variety.

The path ran between the railway and the beach, with the factories and wind farm at Siddock just the other side of the railway. We were approaching the point we'd reached when we were out walking on the morning of Phillip and Anne-Marie's wedding last October, as described here. We were expecting today's route to Workington to follow either the path we had taken on our way out to Siddock in October, or our return path. We really didn't think that the route shown on the OS Map, which goes right through the wind farm we were approaching and much closer to the dock, actually existed. But the OS Map is right! I really enjoyed this section. The wind turbines have clearly been built on a former site of heavy industry of some sort, and later research revealed that there were indeed steelworks here. It was quite a bleak landscape, but very atmospheric. We stopped for lunch among the turbines then continued past a beach. A dog (with its owner) was enjoying this, but in such an industrial landscape it is hardly bucket and spade territory.

We continued close to the operational part of the dock, passing vast stores of timber, presumably for the Iggesund Board Mill at Siddick, which is one of the factories we'd seen earlier. We emerged from the dock area, realising that when coming in the reverse direction we had simply assumed that no footpath could appear from such an industrial area, so we'd turned onto the path alongside the railway rather than persevering towards the docks. We were soon at the big roundabout by the modern bridge over the River Derwent. We climbed up the steps to the bridge, crossed it, and headed to the Tesco next to the Workington Travelodge, where we had stayed in October. Here we stopped for a cup of tea. I checked my phone and commented that the probability of rain was low for the afternoon. Oh how wrong you can be!

It was fine as headed out back along the southern banks of the Derwent towards its mouth, passing boats moored in the rather muddy river and little inlets. The cycle "C2C" route has two alternative starting points, one in Whitehaven and one at the lighthouse at the mouth of the river here. We walked right to the lighthouse when we were here in October, but today we followed the route shown on the map, climbing up The Howe. We initially had the same good views back to the mouth of the river and beyond, but then the rain came on quite heavily. It was windy too, so not the most pleasant of walking. From the top of the hill we descended back down to Workington, where a brief walk took over some old railway sidings and past the delights of a KFC drivethrough where cars were queuing; the concept of queuing in your car for fast food is something we don't quite understand. We crossed the modern railway line and took a path back towards it, initially through trees.

The industry and housing of Workington extends a fair distance to the south of where we had joined the path, and more houses are being built, so for the next mile we were on a narrow path with the railway to our right and either factories or housing developments to our left. Eventually we came to a rather more open area around the Salterbeck Reservoir. This was initially the reservoir for another steelworks, but it has been cleaned up and is now a fishing lake and wildlife area. We used a rather low underpass to get to the seaward sign of the railway, where we suddenly encountered several other people, ranging from young men out dog walking in the rain wearing just tee-shirts and jeans, to another dogwalker with an umbrella! We retreated back to the underpass to get out of the rain to check the map and the dogwalker with the umbrella kindly asked if we needed any help. We didn't, but it was still nice to be asked.

Although we were on the seaward side of the railway, there was a bank to our right, but we scrambled up onto it. The views to the attractive little harbour at Harrington would have been good if it hadn't been for the weather. We descended towards the harbour, but our primary aim was (hopefully) to find some shelter at the station, which we knew was accessed from the other side of the line. We spotted another underpass and went through it, and scrambled up a hill the other side...but this just led us to someone's garden. So we returned under the underpass and continued towards the harbour, then took the road under the railway to the village (also an attractive looking place). There was the station entrance at last.