Day 68 - Freckleton to Blackpool

Very comfortable rooms at the Queen's, and a 7:00 a.m. brekker. We agree that the only entry to be placed in the hotel's debit column is the lack of water power in the showers. Another Colin (or Norman perhaps?) from Whitesides transports us back to Freckleton. He hails from Perth, WA, but has lived in Lancashire for about 20 years. (Think Frank Spencer attempting an Australian accent.) The Coastal Way starts with a somewhat rocky and flotsam bestrewn stretch along the edge of Freckleton Marsh and then passes beside the perimeter fence of Warton Aerodrome - an extremely large installation which, by the look of it, is the home to some very modern fighter jets. In fact, had Gary brought along his copy of the largely uninformative guide to the Lancashire Coastal Way, he would have been able to tell John and Ben that, following its closure as a major US air base at the end of World War II, Warton is now a BAe complex "recognised as a centre of excellence for the design and manufacture of military aircraft including the Eurofighter 2000, Hawk and Tornado". As it is, all we do when passing the site is comment on the grammatical errors in the perimeter signage. Shortly after the aerodrome, we're back in the prosperous surroundings of Lytham and St Anne's (M-A-D Johnny ends his day's walk at one of the many sea-front benches) and well on our way to Blackpool. This involves yet another lengthy but easy stroll along the beach in bright sunshine - a hard life, but somebody's got to do it. Today's texts from JG inform us that, when he arrived in Manchester at 9:30, Charlie was up and ready to leave (bit of a surprise) and that mushrooms have been purchased - in the hope that they'll still be required - at Keele Services Waitrose. Phew! Anyway, back to the beach. We've ascertained that high tide is shortly after 1:00 p.m. which, at noon, seems unlikely given the significant distance between us and the sea. However, during the next half hour, the tide comes in with some speed and, by the time we walk up onto the prom, we're only a few yards away from having a paddle. This is close to Blackpool's Pleasure Beach, although what "pleasure" can possibly be derived from the rides on offer there is a mystery and, indeed, background screaming accompanies the next 10 minutes of our approach to the centre of Blackpool where it seems that the majority of the businesses are, perhaps not surprisingly, fish and chip sellers, amusement arcades or cabaret "nitespots". We toy with the idea of continuing a little way beyond Blackpool and coming back via the Tramway, but eventually decide to finish just after passing the North Pier in the hope of finding somewhere suitable for "lunch" on the walk to Blackpool North Station. At the start of that walk, there is the slightly dispiriting sight of a clothes shop proclaiming that it stocks sizes from 2XL to 8XL but, around the corner, there is the far less dispiriting sight of the Duke of York pub. Our decision to finish where we did proves to have been well taken. The pub is welcoming and quiet, and there's just enough time for a couple of relaxed al fresco pints with paninis before we need to catch our train to Preston where we have a stroke of good fortune. An incident earlier in the day near Lancaster has resulted in severe delays to most services, but the train on which we're booked is one of the few running on time. Hoorah! It's slightly delayed getting to New Street, but John catches his connecting train there with a minute to spare, and Ben and Gary celebrate with half a bottle of red on the way back to Euston.