Ever since my heart attack after walking up High Rigg and Raven Crag in January I have tried to do as much walking as possible. Unfortunately this has mainly involved walking around my local area, pavements and roads. Occasionally I have followed my wife as she took Ted the horse out for a hack, a nice change but Ted the horse tends to walk slightly quicker than I want to! For a change I have tried an old favorite of mine along the River Wyre. I have now done that in both directions repeatedly and want a change.
Pouring over maps on the PC at home I kept searching for circular walks that I could do locally without much success. After visiting my doctor and being advised that I should be walking up to 4 miles a day I really needed to get my thinking cap on!
Then one night it all came to me as I looked at a map of Fleetwood. There seemed to be a “long distance” path that I did not really know about, The Lancashire Coastal Way, a linear rather than circular walk but one that could easily be broken down into bite size chunks that would fit in with my exercise regime, right then further investigation needed!
A quick search on the internet provided a page from the Lancashire County Council web site. According to that page (link) the Lancashire Coastal Way is a 137 mile walk, I figured it to be 58 miles, yikes!!!! To quote from the web site

“The Coastal way is a 137 mile footpath following the coastline between Mersey side and Cumbria . The Lancashire coastline, much of which is of international ornithological interest comprises a variety of landscapes from the distinctive limestone scenery of Arnside / Silverdale, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, through glazed saltmarshes and agricultural land, the seaside resorts of Morecambe and Blackpool and the Fylde coast, as well as the major river estuaries of the Lune, Wyre and Ribble.”

That is about as much info as I could get on the net, luckily I live on the Fylde Coast so I know most of the area very well, even as far as Lancaster where I have ridden a bike along much of the path before. Thinking about it it seemed like a good idea. I needed to walk as part of my recuperation process. I could break the full distance down into manageable sections and could use either public transport or gadge a lift of someone at the start and end of each day, this was starting to sound like a plan!
I have read a few web pages written by people who have completed long distance walks such as the Coast to Coast and I really enjoyed reading them, now its my turn!

The planning of the walk involved using the PC and mapping software to break down the walk into manageable chunks. I was under certain constraints as far as time goes, picking the kids up from school, cardiac rehab at the hospital etc. I originally intended to use public transport at the start and end of each day but this proved just too complicated, coupled with a lack of funds I had to rely on my own car to get to the start of each day and my parents to pick me up and return me to my car each afternoon. This had to be done in good enough time to enable me to get back to get the kids from school.