(S/E) From Waters Reach front door of the cottage, turn left and walk down to the Navigation Inn. Turn left into the car park, with the canal basin on your right.
(1) Beyond the end of the basin, turn right and walk over to a footbridge which crosses the A6. On the other side, turn right and follow a short path below the A6 to reach Western Lane. Turn left and walk a short distance up the road to a left-hand bend, where you turn right, up a steep metalled driveway. Beyond the last house, follow the footpath to a gate.
(2) Turn left and follow a path to the left of a wall. Descend diagonally across the field to a stone step stile through a wall in the far corner. Continue to cross a small stream close to the wall at the top of the next field, and then follow the wall uphill out of the valley.
(3) Below a farm, leave the wall and cut the corner half-left (North-East) to another step stile in the wall at the end of the field. Cross a narrow lane, and take the right-hand (upper) of the two paths opposite. Beyond a gate, follow a walled track for a quarter of mile, with wide views over the Blackbrook valley to the left.
Beyond a second gate, continue ahead across the open hillside, descending a little before meeting a track joining from the left and climbing to a point just below a road and farm. Don’t go through the gate into the road, but instead walk up the grassy ridge to the rocky summit of Eccles Pike.
(4) From the top, drop off left to the road (Eccles Road), then turn right. Pass Top Eccles Farm on the right, then turn right into the next farm entrance, where a public footpath leads through a hand-gate and up to and past a small disused quarry.
The path passes behind the farm buildings and through a metal gate into a field, where you head half-right to a road. Turn right and, after a few yards, leave the road via a stile on the left by a gate.
(5) Do not follow the obvious green quarry track away to the left and uphill, instead passing under the power lines and then bearing left. The path initially runs just below and approximately parallel to the power lines and passes a stile then, beyond some oak trees bounded by a broken wall, turns right and heads firmly downhill.
(6) Having passed through a walled belt of trees, head straight down the field beyond, parallel to the right-hand wall and aiming to the right of the small quarry at the bottom. (2) Beyond the quarry, go through a gate and follow the walled path and drive beyond to return to Western Lane. Turn left and follow the road to a junction (ignoring the path you used earlier), where you turn right to cross the A6 and return to Waters Reach via the canal basin. (S/E)
