Day 33, Stoke on Trent to Sandbach.

There was great excitement in Stoke today as Robbie Williams was in town to play his homecoming concert at Port Vale. Quite an event but we decided not to stay and headed back to the canal!

We resumed our views of Stoke’s incredible industrial heritage. There are so many interesting buildings to see it’s hard to capture them all. The city soon gave way to two stunning lakes, Westport and Bath Pool and we were back out in the countryside continuing along the Trent and Mersey Canal.

Our journey took us to Harecastle Tunnel. We were not able to walk through this and so had to take an overground route and then rejoin the canal further along. It certainly looked very different when we saw it again as it had turned bright orange! We learnt this was from the tunnel excavations and that iron ore had caused the change in colour.

From here we travelled downhill along  a section that is known as Heartbreak Hill. This is because there are 31 canal locks between Kidsgrove and Middlewich. We saw lots of people navigating them along this busy stretch of canal.

Once again we passed under the M6, we’ve driven this so often it is strange to be walking underneath. Our walk finished on The Wheelock Rail Trail and we were very pleased to see we were in our seventh county, Cheshire. It’s been a really interesting day of walking.