Day 50 Part 2 - Where's the path?

(continued from Part One)

An hour after this decision I was neck-deep in undergrowth. The map showed that I had to reach a path which ran for half a mile on the opposite side of the canal to the towpath. The OS showed it clearly - a crisp red dotted line on a clean white background.

To begin with, the path was easy, following a farm track to a copse and a pool, signposted, "WARNING - NO FISHING! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED". The letters of the word 'you' were in blood red for chilling emphasis. Clearly, the signwriter had given thought as to how the fewest words could be as menacing as possible. Earlier I'd seen a sign about parking outside flats in Sutton Coldfield which began almost apologetically, "Polite notice... Please don't park on this drive."

Anyway, back to the path. I trotted past the pond and along the field edge, checking the blinking red circle which appeared on my phone's map display, once it had locked onto half-a-dozen GPS satellites. Sure enough, I was on track.

The crop was waist high and I trod the margins through which my legs were lashed by barley, nettles and brambles. I had to go slowly, as if paddling through opaque seawater along a rocky shore.

Eventually I reached the end of the field a the embankment of the canal. I had to cross a wide ditch using a narrow rolled steel joist of a bridge whose timbered deck had long since disappeared.

Up onto the canal and things got worse. There was the barest hint of a path - evidence that someone before me, perhaps years before me, had also walked this way. I stooped beneath branches, walked through bullrushes taer than me, strimming the nettles with my legs which began to feel aflame.

Eventually, I reached the bridge which carried me to the towpath on the other side. An 'information board' welcomed me to Middleton Quarry, which was being developed as a nature reserve. "There are two footpaths," explained the sign, which also mapped the route I'd battled through, "but these are not waymarked and in places, impassable. You are advised not to use them." I felt a greater ire towards the makers of this sign than to the other two.

(continues in Part Three)