Blackpool!

What can I say that you don't already know?  Well, getting there was a bit of an adventure.  As I reached the ferry pier at Knott End, I noticed that the tide was out - like everywhere round here, it goes out a long way.   The sign said it was running, but the very long pier sloped down into what seemed to be mudflats.  I went down at the scheduled time, and the ferry appeared, finding a small channel beside the pier.  I asked the ferryman what happens if the tide is too low?  "We can't run.  We had to stop the service for three hours earlier today.”  So I had a lucky escape.

Arriving at Fleetwood the first thing you notice is the smell of fish and chips.  It's a cheerful seaside town with a curiously named North Euston Hotel.  And a long prom, which leads to Blackpool, usually.
They are doing it up, putting in massive concrete sea defences, so it was closed for a couple of miles. The diversion involved a ladder stile - tricky with a bike - and a sandy bridleway around the golf course, which lies between the prom and the houses.

Blackpool tower came into sight.  An illumination, feeble in the bright sun.  The pier.  Another pier. People actually swimming in the sea.  It was a warm sunny day but I bet the sea was freezing.  A Wetherspoons, right next to the tower:"Albert and the Lion". The pleasure beach, which isn't a beach but a rollercoaster park.  Yet another pier.  Blackpool is big, noisy, fun, unapologetic.  The trams connect this vast seaside together and make it work, somehow.

I rode down the prom to the tram depot, and suddenly, I was dumped on the road.  "Welcome to St Annes" said the sign.  I think St Annes prides itself on not being Blackpool.  It's genteel, nice looking houses overlooking a beach which is made of mountainous sand dunes.  No prom - well, there is one in the very centre of town, with an old-fashioned pier and a few rides aimed at smaller children.  I liked it.  And I discovered that Lytham St Annes is actually two distinct places. St Annes gives way to get Lytham next down the coast.  They seemed similar in character to me - perhaps Lytham is a bit grander?

Leaving Lytham, I was under pressure to find somewhere for tea.  And somewhere to sleep.  More urgently, a toilet. All the public ones from Fleetwood onwards cost 20p.  What a rip-off.   McDonalds was the answer to two of my prayers, and their wi-fi solved the other one.  And I also booked my train ticket home tomorrow. £17.80, not bad.  Arrives Euston 23:30.

Tonight I'm in a cheap but fine hotel in Fulwood, a district of Preston where my friend Rob Steele grew up. It seems fitting since it was his bike I rode round most of the coast so far, and parts of it I used to build my "new" bike that I'm riding this year.