The Rotary Way
The Rotary Way footpath was established in 2005 to celebrate the centenary of the foundation of the Rotary Club. The walk is just over 50 miles around the boundaries of Bolton and is broken down into eight more manageable stages, each starting and finishing on a bus route. Indeed, getting the bus would be sensible since the stages are all linear and hence do not finish at the start point!
Many walkers head for the hills in the north of the borough and ignore the lower-level but equally interesting possibilities offered by the eastern and western parts of Bolton. Now, follow the Rotary Way and see what you have missed: there is interest all the way round.
The walk aims to keep close to the Bolton boundary on paths which are defined legal rights of way and avoids roads wherever possible.
Some of the paths followed by the walk are rough and they may at times be muddy, flooded, frozen, dusty or obstructed. At two points on the same stage, the walk even goes along designated footpaths through several domestic gardens!
If you plan to do the whole route (and indeed even if you only wish to do some of it), you may find the Rotary Way booklet to be very useful, with detailed breakdowns of each stage (although be warned – some of the bus numbers and routes are a little out of date!) and sketch maps to help you on your way. If you wish to get your copy, get in touch with the Westhoughton branch of the Rotary Club using the ‘contact us’ form on their website and enquire.
Fiddlers Ferry View
Be prepared for quite a change having left the road behind and having climbed up the farm track past Hey Head farm as the path is pretty overgrown and very muddy, even on a fairly dry day. Some kind soul has attempted to remedy this by laying down some tarpaulin, but alas, it hasn’t been completely successful. This walk is perhaps one for your old walking boots!
On a clear day, you are able to see the cooling towers of Fiddlers Ferry power station in Cheshire in the distance. Apparently (according to the great god Wikipedia), this very power station is featured in the titles for the BBC programme ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’. We shall leave it up to you to decide whether these towers are an impressive landmark or an ugly scar on the landscape.