A Visit to the Wonderfully Named “Nicky Nook”

Its a blessing and a curse. Yes I’m referring to lockdown. I really believe that without it we would be in a very different place with regards the pressures on the NHS etc. The curse in this context is of course not being able to travel. In this context I mean travel abroad. For the first time in decades I didn’t travel overseas in 2020. What I did do, was discover that the UK has some lovely places, and lots of them are on my doorstep.

The governments roadmap reached another milestone last week and the “stay home” restriction was lifted. This was replaced with a stay local tagline. It’s hard to know what constitutes local, so I’ve decided that I can venture slightly further away from my house. It was also the first time in maybe 6 months that I was able to visit friends and go walk with them. Little did I know that when I set off to visit my mate for a walk that we would visit such an exotically named location. My mate now lives in Garstang, so it was good to visit his new place for the first time but also to get a chance to walk in a different location.

The Views to the Coast

Who knew that you could see so far from the Trig point on the top of Nicky Nook? As I drove towards Garstang, I was struck by how flat the terrain was. Not a huge surprise as this was heading in the general direction of the coast. Off to the right there were some hills, that is our location I told myself. I was right. Steve had picked a route that would take us through the sights of Garstang and then onwards to wards the hills. Rather than a head-on stomp upwards we walked in a general uphill sweeping direction. Lots of open fields and crossing of the River Wyre. Up and over the motorway and we started our slow but steady uphill walk. We followed the line of the Grizedale Brook and on towards the Grizedale Reservoir. Once we reached the reservoir it was a short but steep ascent. Once at the top there were some fabulous views to be had of the surrounding countryside. We needed a rest at this point, so we ate our pasties and drank coffee and generally caught our breath.

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We realised that we weren’t actually sat at the trip point, but were at maybe a way finding tower. What I did see though was that you could see the world famous Blackpool tower way off in the distance. As you’d expect I only had my carry around camera (Sony A6600 with the 16 to 55 f2.8 G lens) so its hard to get a zoomed in view. You can see though on the image above the view from Nicky Nook all the way out to the coastline. If you look at the image closely you can see Blackpool Tower.

Dreaming of The Lake District

It took us maybe 5 minutes to walk from were we ate lunch to trig point on Nicky Nook. It was a glorious day so unsurprisngly there were a few folk around. We didn’t loiter at the trig we headed off maybe 20 yards past it. I suddenly realised that I could see the Southern Fells of the Lake District off in the distance. Heysham Nuclear power station was also visible.

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I’m not exactly sure when I will be back in the Lake District, so it crossed my mind that this was as close as I was going to get for a while yet. I was lucky enough to have a gift voucher bought for me Christmas that will get me another 121 with Chris Sale in the Lake District but this will need to be planned into the schedule for both me and Chris.

The Tarn

The OS map showed us that the body of water just viewable on the image above is called “The Tarn”. Steve and I headed off in that general direction, following one of the paths that lay before us.

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As we approached the Tarn we did debate whether there was actually people swimming in it, but as we got closer it was just some ducks. You get a sense of the location of the tarn in the wider countryside on the image above. I have a feeling there are some better compositions to be had, but that meant time and we didn’t have the time to go let me wander around looking for compositions. We had a lift to catch and the usual Friday stuff to deal with after we had finished. I have a feeling ill be back to this spot.

The Gate

We were on the downwards part of the walk now and were heading for the village of Scorton were Steve’s wife would pick us up. As it turned out it was a lovely quaint village and another that will be visited again.

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The path we were following led us to the gate you can see in the image above. These gates are dotted all over the countryside, and lots of them have cracking views on the other side of them. This one is no exception. I’ve no idea what this little pond is called, as the OS map doesn’t give it a name. I think you’ll agree that this is a lovely scene. Complimented by the glorious weather and the grand vista that is spread pout in the distance behind the pond. This is a cracking location and one that I will return to in the future. It might not yield any images for my projects but that doesn’t really detract from what a lovely location this is. To top it all off me and Steve spent the time chattering like a couple of fish wives!! No change there I hear you cry.