LEJOG Day 43: Macclesfield to New Mills

Weather: Cloudy and cool, tried to rain, but failed

Distance covered today: 20.2km (12.9mi)

Last night's B&B: Moorhayes House (£45)

Cumulative distance: 834.5km (518.5mi)/ % Complete: 47.4%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 43 (click!)

This is a fantastic adventure!  There are times when I can scarcely believe this is happening to me.  Earlier today, I was wandering around a labyrinth, preoccupied with its design. A dog-walker came past and he must have noticed the look of boyish preoccupation on my face.  Suddenly I caught sight of him, smiling ruefully at me!  In retrospect, I can hardly blame him. I should act my age!

Interestingly, the thing I have found is that my moods change more rapidly on this walk than has been my previous experience. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is the obvious fact of being essentially alone for an extended period, or at least with the company only of strangers. Another factor is the physical demand on my aging bones. I tend to be in conversation with my body most of the time, and when it is complaining, I tend to feel a bit down. This morning, though, I was in the very best of moods. Yesterday’s heavy rain, which had most conveniently coincided with my impromptu rest day, gave way to cloudy but dry weather, and contrary to my expectations, the route today was full of interest and variation.

My eternal spring is continuing. I thought a couple of days ago that it was beginning to wane, but I have noticed with great interest the point that Julian made to me earlier that wild flowers tend to be absent from the side of busy roads. I don’t know why this should be. It could be a lack of insects for pollination, or just that the seeds are unable to settle and germinate, but the effect is increasingly obvious. As soon as one returns to rural paths and canal towpaths, the flowers, and my spring, return. I have now been looking at spring flowers since the start of April! Though to be fair, it has felt as if I have been advancing into winter! It remains a matter of wonder to me that advancing northwards by a matter of a couple of hundred miles (much less, of course, than I have covered from the extreme South West) can possibly result in so dramatic a change to the climate. Also, I do feel I had better enjoy the present, because as I watch the weather forecasts on a nightly basis, the message is always the same: rainy, windy and cold in the north, dry and warm in the south. I am looking for a supreme example of Kevin luck!  As we advance into June, I need a change to the Jetstream, sending the cold fronts over the top of Scotland. Watch this space!

But, back to the present, or as I am about to describe, anything but!  As I was wandering along the easy routes of the last couple of days, I had time to let my mind wander, and, not for the first time, it wandered on to the subject of cosmology. For those of you uninterested in the subject, though I simply cannot imagine anyone who isn’t interested, look away now!

I have been puzzled for some years by the repeated observations of eminent and credible scientists of their discovery of stars that exploded soon after the big bang, the light of which is only now reaching us on Earth. Consider this recent report from the BBC, “A cataclysmic explosion of a huge star near the edge of the observable Universe may be the most distant single object yet spied by a telescope. Scientists believe the blast, which was detected by Nasa's Swift space observatory, occurred a mere 520 million years after the Big Bang. This means its light has taken a staggering 13.14 billion years to reach Earth.”

Now the thing that has puzzled me for ages is that if everything started at a “point” at the time of the Big Bang, then, by definition, we must have been very much closer to the star that “cataclysmically” exploded than we are now. According to Einstein’s theories, nothing can travel faster than light, so that means the light from the exploding star should have reached us a very long time ago; in fact long before our galaxy existed!  So what is it doing only catching up with us now?

This problem has fascinated me for years, but I often feared that the answer would be caught up in the “curvature of the space-time continuum” and other Einsteinian conclusions, and would therefore escape my simple reasoning. But the glorious advantage of long distance walks is that one is able to frame one’s questions precisely and then use the wonderful web to ask them. Last night I found out that my assumption that nothing could move faster than light is wrong! It is true that no information can travel faster than light, but that doesn’t mean that relative to each other, two bodies cannot recede from each other faster than the speed of light! They just will never be able to see each other doing so!

The other fascinating thing I discovered was that in the very early universe, “expansion” was happening at such a rate that indeed gas particles, etc. within it were receding from each other at a speed much faster than the speed of light. This early expansion eventually slowed, by which time the distance between objects was already prodigious. It was after this that the light from the exploding star set out towards our shores and 13 billion years later, it has only just caught up with us!

The other fascinating conclusion from this insight is that there must therefore be an “envelope”, even more distant from us containing untold galaxies receding at such a rate that the light from them will never reach us. I also understand that for some inexplicable reason, to do with “dark energy and dark matter”, the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating! This must mean that as time passes, progressively fewer heavenly bodies will be visible from Earth and at the edge of that “window” galaxies currently visible will simply fade and disappear! If there are advanced civilisations out there, we will never know!

I have no doubt that the Professor of English who once commented that this blog should restrict itself to a few distinct themes will, if he were still reading it, be horrified by my inexcusable lapse into layman astrophysics, but I am comforted by the thought that he will long ago have passed on to more interesting pastures!  For those of you still toiling through these passages, I can only apologise!

For myself, I am delighted by the fact that I am now very close to Sheffield, and that means, to Robin Hood country. And who should be materialising tomorrow? None other than my darling daughter, Maid Marion! How appropriate is that? She will accompany Veronica, who will be visiting me for the last time on this LEJOG, because henceforth I will be too distant for Veronica safely to get to me.

I can’t wait to see both of them!

An extraordinary footbridge leading to the Middlewood Way

As I get closer to Manchester, so there are more and more reminders of the industrial revolution, such as these mills, which looked almost like a castle

Hacking on the Middlewood Way

The Bollington Labyrinth is based on a Classical Greek unicursal design: the seven rings of the single path are contained in eight concentric walls. The history of labyrinths stretches back thousands of years across the world.  Walking into the centre of the labyrinth is supposed to allow one to discover a sense of inner calm and contemplation. It didn't work for me!

I was fascinated to find an information board marked in kilometres in England!!

A dog rose; dedicated to Veronica

The Middlewood Way, yet another disused railway; easy and attractive

Back on the Macclesfield Canal; feeding the geese

A tranquil stretch of the Macclesfield Canal

My first view of the Pennines

The architecture is changing. There is a distictly northern feel to the blackened stone and the style of building

My very comfortable B&B for the night, The Packhorse Inn outside New Mills