Paws Around the Potteries - Another Railway Walk

 Ay up, everyone!  It's Hanley Bear here again, with another of my post exploring the very best place in the whole world, my home city of Stoke-on-Trent!

One of the amazing things about Stoke-on-Trent is the amount of green space in the city.  This is mainly because, when old heavy industries like coal-mining and steel making closed down, the land left behind wasn't good for building houses on, and instead it was turned into country parks.  There are also miles and miles of cycle routes using disused railways, and it was one of those we explored on our latest walk.

We started at Ford Green Hall.  This is a marvellous place according to Polar, who did some gardening for them a long time ago before she had small bears to look after.  We haven't been to visit yet.  Our humans planned to take us a couple of times but got the opening times wrong, and then it was closed for major repairs, but now it is mended and we have a photo of when it is open, we can hopefully get to see inside in the spring.

Close by, there used to be a railway line that ran from a junction at Milton in Stoke-on-Trent through the town of Biddulph and up to Macclesfield.  We have seen some of the route on our canal journeys, as it went over the bridge at the bottom lock of the Bosley locks.  A lot of this route is now a cycleway and footpath.  We have followed it north, to the old coal mine at Chatterley-Whitfield, but never walked south from Ford Green Hall, so that is what Sonning and I, and our human guardians, did this time.

The path runs along a valley which soon opens out into scrubby grassland and birch woods on one side and a field with ponies in on the other, then a pond which is fenced off.  

 After you go under the A53 main road, there is a big fishing pond with all sorts of wild birds on it and more woods around it.  Just as we came out of the tunnel under the road, Polar saw a man with a smart camera and a huge telephoto lens talking to another man, and he told us there were parakeets living wild in the woods!

 

Being a good, friendly Stokie, he very kindly pointed out the old woodpecker's nest hole they had moved into and soon afterwards, we saw the bright green birds flying around and perching in the tree.  Sonning was amazed to see them so close up.  He had seen dozens of them when he was boating through London with Polar and Grizzly, but they had always been too far away for Polar to get photos.

   

The photographers said they also regularly see egrets and a kingfisher here, as well as cormorants and goosanders.  They have a Facebook group where they share their photos, which they invited Polar to join (so she has). 

We walked a little way further along the cycleway, to see how close we were to the canal, and suddenly saw this...

It was a section of track from the old railway!  We jumped down out of our Bear Bag to take a closer look. 

"It must have been brilliant when there were steam engines running along here," I said to Sonning.  "The coal from that big pit at Chatterley Whitfield came down this line and some of it got loaded onto canal boats at a wharf not far away."

We didn't have time to look for the canal wharf, as it was time for Polar and Grizzly to take us home for lunch, and we knew the other bears would be getting hungry.

But there was time for some tree climbing when we got back to the lake.  I wanted to see of I could climb the tree to look in the parakeet nest, but Sonning said we should be good bears and not scare the birds.

"We definitely need to bring the other bears here," I told Polar and Grizzly.  "These are great climbing trees and they would love to see the parakeets and the railway line."

"We'll definitely come again," she replied.  "And, when we do, we'll walk right around the lake and see if we can find the canal wharf too."

Polar put Sonning and I back into the Bear Bag for the walk back to the car.  She and Grizzly took a path on the other side of the stream that ran along higher up the hill.  Sonning and I waved to the ponies we had seen earlier, but I don't think they saw us.

  

Although it's sad that there aren't steam engines running along the line these days, it is a great footpath and cycle route, and I'm looking forward to going again with all the other bears.  Maybe there will be parakeet chicks by then?