Following a disused railway line, the Wirral Way is a broad, level path, with plenty of opportunities to nip off and explore nearby attractions.
Join it in Parkgate, a pretty village on the Dee Estuary, where you can take a stroll along The Parade. In the days when Parkgate was a popular bathing resort, this was a seafront promenade. Today, the shore all silted up, it’s a great place to sit on the seawall, gazing across to the Welsh mountains and watching the odd kestrel hovering above the saltmarsh.
Continuing along the path northwest brings you to Heswall, where the moody foreshore offers plenty of scope for arty Instagram shots of old boats scattered across the marshes. A little further along at Thurstaston Beach, high cliffs drop down to a long sand-and-pebble beach, and great flocks of turnstones and redshanks scuttle round at low tide
If you turn your back on the beach and head up Station Road, you come to Thurstaston village and, beyond that, Thurstaston Common, a woodland and heathland area criss-crossed by footpaths, where you can soak up great views from Thurstaston Hill. Heading back down to the Wirral Way and turning right leads to the end of the path at West Kirby, where, if the tides are right, you can cross the sands to Hilbre Island.