Walk status: On-lead
It's been a long time since ive visited the Chelsea Sugar Factory, and for George it was a first. I couldn't remember there being any actual walks there, but according to Google there was so we headed to park up at the main carpark right beside the factory.
There is a pathway that leads towards the beach so we decided to explore that first as we had seen someone else with a dog coming back from that direction. Turns out that doesn't really go anywhere other than to roads as far as I could see. I'm not sure if dogs are actually allowed at the beach here, but as there was no-one there at the time and it was a hot morning I let George have a quick swim before heading back. I didn't take notice of the sign at the entrance to the path, but I probably should have as it would have told me there isn't really anything that way.
Reviewing the sign and the marked pathways there looked to be two walks that looked a good distance. One walk starts on the left hand side, just before you get to the main carpark. There is a small sign pointing you to a walkway. This takes you back up through the park, and behind the houses you past on Colonial Road on the way down.
The alternative is to head back to a smaller gravel carpark which will be on your right when you're coming down the hill. This carpark leads you to a walk through the bush area and the walk George and I choose to do. I'd suggest just parking up here rather than heading to the main carpark.
The entrance is through a area of bush and the track is rough with tree roots everywhere, so its one to watch your footing. It's also quite steep in some parts with quite a few stairs and small bridges to cross so you need to have a reasonable level of fitness to walk here. There are lots of signs along the track that allow you to go in different directions, towards different roads. You walk alongside the water, but most of it is stagnant and there are warnings to not access it so don't be tempted to let your dog near it.
You'll reach a large stagnant pond area, and need to cross a gravel road and up a small set of steps to keep going on the pathway.
Upon reaching the first sign in the track it points left to Homewood Place or right to Langstone Place, looking at the map, it looked like Langstone Place would offer us a longer walk so off we went. The next step directed us to Mappin Place or up the stairs to Langstone. We took the Mappin Place route. After walking through the bush tracks for a short while, we reached another sign. Pointing us in the direction of Mappin Place, or continuing down to see some large Kauri's and to Chelsea View Drive. I decided to end our walk here and head back.
There is Kauri dieback here, so supplies are provided at this point in the walk to spray your shoes. I decided not to bother, so hence we turned back here. It took us around 20 minutes to get to this point and thats with stopping to document a few things on the way and look at the map. The walk took around 40 minutes to complete, at a distance of around 2.7kms. I have documented it on Map My Dog Walk app and made it public so you can view it there.
Location: Access via Colonial Road, Birkenhead
Things to know:
There are toilets here on Colonial Road
Baits laid in bush areas so keep dogs on lead
There is no suitable drinking water here for you or your dog so make sure you take some