4.5 miles from us · CH64 6RL
Parkgate and the Dee marshes
Old Baths car park, North Parade, Parkgate
The old sea front at Parkgate, with the whole Dee estuary open in front of it. Flat walking, enormous skies, and more birds than most dogs know what to do with.
Parkgate is about four and a half miles from us, off the A540 by way of the B5135. The RSPB reserve here is the saltmarsh itself and the front that looks out over it, and unlike the country parks it never shuts — the reserve is open 24 hours. Most people start from the Old Baths car park on North Parade, which is a shared public car park with around a hundred spaces.
Dogs are welcome, and the reserve puts it as "assistance and other dogs under close control". That wording is worth taking at face value rather than as a formality. Skylarks, redshanks and curlews nest out on the marsh, so from spring through to midsummer a dog that likes to range is a genuine problem here. We keep dogs on the front and the made paths, which is where the walking is anyway.
There is a three-mile circuit from the car park, and it is an easy one: flat throughout, good surfaces, two kissing gates and no stiles at all. Worth knowing that the footpaths out around the marsh are public rights of way rather than RSPB ground, so the RSPB does not maintain them and their condition varies more than the front does.
Winter is when it earns the trip. Thousands of wildfowl use the estuary, pintail and brent geese among them, and the RSPB's advice is to come at high tide, when the water pushes the ducks, geese, waders and birds of prey in close to the front. That is more for you than for the dog, but a flat, open, unhurried hour on a cold morning suits most of them very well.
Worth knowing
- Ground-nesting birds. Skylarks, redshanks and curlews nest on the marsh, and the reserve asks for dogs under close control — this is not the place to let one range in spring or early summer.
- The reserve never closes but the car park does: 5pm in winter, 8pm in summer. There is a height restriction on the entrance.
- No toilets on site, and no visitor centre. The nearest facilities are in the village.
- The paths out around the marsh are not the RSPB's to maintain, so their surface is less dependable than the front.
Details from RSPB — Dee Estuary, Parkgate.
Other walks nearby
Twelve miles of old railway line that starts on our doorstep. Flat, sheltered, and you can do as much or as little of it as the dog has in them.
Mature woodland on the edge of the Mersey, with the estuary opening up through the trees. Closest proper woodland walk to the house.
Fifty-four hectares of ancient woodland in a river valley — the best of the local walks for a dog that wants to put its nose down and work.
Woodland and meadow either side of a brook, five minutes off junction 7 — the closest nature reserve to us on the Cheshire side of the boundary.
Twenty-eight hectares of old landfill turned over to grassland and surfaced paths, with a short climb to a view over the Mersey to the Liverpool waterfront.
A shade under thirty-seven hectares of woodland, grass and water on the west side of the Wirral, with two surfaced waymarked trails straight from the car park and a cafe at the end of them. The longest trip of any walk we list.