Problem #5 - Nasty Surprises

I encountered this particular barrier on a post-midnight drive whilst on a mission to take some night-time scenes of Walney Channel for the web site. Imagine my horrow when after the best part of a 3 mile drive on my scooter I was within 100 yard of my destination (the top of the old slag heap) only to discover that I had been thwarted yet again.

What makes matters even worse, (even worse that the prospect of a fruitless 6 mile round trip) is that I know from my motor cycling days that this particular barrier WILL NOT deny access to motor cyclicts. Think about it... how likely is it that a kid who wants to go bombing up and down a slag heap on a motor bike would be denied that pleasure by piece of steel tubing less that 12 inches high? It's simply not going to happen is it! they will either dismount and negotiate their bike through the gap so kindly left for them, (they - unlike me - being fit fit as a lop and perfectly capable of doing so!), or they will simply oik the front wheel up in the air and drive over it! Heck - if I were fit - I'd do that with mine - and mine's got FOUR wheels to worry about!!!

It's such a crying shame that the channel-side walk isn't accessible from both ends. I adore boats... I love water half to death... and hills?... even man-made ones!... you see a hill and you just HAVE to go up it don't you! Isn't that what Sir Edmund Hillary said? He climbed it "Because It Was there"?... You don't lose that spirit of adventure just because you can't walk, you know! It would probably be easier for everyone concerned if you did, but I still want to see what's round the next corner, to see what's over the top of that hill.

I really would like to get up that darn slag heap one day and just sit there under the stars on a cold clear night gazing at the channel and contemplating life the universe and everything. Is that really too much to ask?... Is a motor cycle barrier that doesn't even work really necessary there?

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