You can make this into a nice circular walk by staying on the path
which will bring you out at the back of the Black Horse pub.
This pub is reputed to be the second oldest in England - first
served ale in 997AD! and worth trying for a pint or some pub
grub.
From there you can return to you car by either Long Lane or Back
Lane.(Back Lane is far quieter with less traffic and will bring
you back to the wooden bridge - just watch for the path or you
could miss it 53 38.264, 002 35.117). The whole walk would take
around an hour.
The best place to park is on Hut Lane, just off Long Lane (53
38.111, 2 35.574). There is plenty of room for several cars and
there are no parking restrictions (see photo).
From there walk down the footpath to the wooden bridge and turn
left. (Second photo)
Follow the path by the river & through the fields of wild
flowers (third photo) and it will bring you to the cache.
The girls are now excited and taking bets on who will be the
first to find - currently Citizen Smith and Pengy & Tigger are
their front runners ;-) We have left a lottery ticket for this
Saturdays lottery as the FTF pressy - hope it wins and makes you
millionaires (but would you still Geocache?)
Good luck.
EDITS
16th June 2006 - Thanks to Citizen Smith for this
additional information : The area is locally refered to as
"Abyssinia". This is because the route was used by Coal miners
walking home to Chorley from the various Coal Mines around the Hut
Lane end of the valley. As there weren't any pit baths in those
days the miners were still black with coal dust as they walked
home, hence the area became known as Abyssinia (the country now
known as Ethiopia).
19th June 2006 - I have now uploaded a map of the area
from 1849 which shows all the local Coal Mines that were working
then and the route the miners would have taken. I've highlighted
the valley, the cache and Long Lane for reference.
9th July 2006 - Clue increased due to difficulties
keeping a signal at the cache location (lots more overhead tree
cover) and photo of the area added.
7th March 2007 - Why not also try GC10JPN which is only a
little further down the same valley?
