We travelled from Northwich to Middlewich today. The canal was very scenic, but lots of reeds causing the canal to be a single lane in places.

The (wich) in these places ie Northwich, Middlewich)  means salt. They are salt producing towns. This has caused a lot of subsidence within the area.

Middlewich is a lovely little town.Today they had a market, selling good quality products. We bought 5 cheeses from the Cheshire Cheese Co, which are great tasting cheeses.

Despite the weather forecast, it has been lovely and sunny here.

Today has been an easy day. Tomorrow we join the Shropshire Union Canal then the Llangollen, and locks which we have not encoutered for about 40 miles.

We arrived at Anderton around 11.30am on Wednesday. We were told that the next available slot was 1.30pm.

 

 

At 1.00pm we were on the holding mooring and being briefed.. At 1.30 we manoevered the boat into the lift basin, then along the channel and into the lift. Another boat came alongside.

 

After the completion of safety checks, we started to descend. A little bumpy at first but then gliding down the 50ft to the bottom. It takes 7 minutes in total.

 

 

Once released we moved out onto the River Weaver. A very slow winding river.

 

 

After passing through Saltersford Lock we contined to the Acton Swing Bridge and moored up for the night.

 

On Thursday we left quite early and headed back to Anderton to drop our guest off. We then proceeded to Northwich. After visiting the town centre we headed back to Anderton.

 

 

 

 

We stayed at Anderton last night.

 

This morning we set off early as we have had problems with boaters speeding past.

 

When we arrived back at our boat last night, a neighbour boater was hitting our mooring pins in. He told us that a boat had gone past so fast that it pulled our pins out, and we were drifting across the canal. (Hire Boats)

 

We are now moored outside Northwich.

 

We have decided that we have enough time to go to the Llangollen Canal, which we did 10 years ago in a hire boat.

 

 



We moved from Lymm yesterday, travelled for 7 miles and moored up at a place called Moore. The Bridgewater Canal is a very easy canal to travel. No locks or swing bridges, so we make good headway.
We had a good meal at the Red Bull Inn, before having an early night. (No internet, radio or tv reception)

Today we left the Bridgewater Canal at Preston Brook. Went through the tunnel (1239 yards) and the canal has halved in width. We are now back on narrow canals until we join the Severn at Stourport.

Tomorrow we are meeting friends and going on the Anderton Lift. This takes the boat down from the Trent & Mersey Canal to the River Weaver, which we hope to explore for a couple of days. (and no flooding this time)

We will update photos tomorrow

We moved from the Trafford Centre yesteday, and decided to go for it.

We passed through Stretford and Sale in Manchester, which is surprisingly clean and pleasant.

We then moved into the countryside, and at a place called Little Bollington, we entered Cheshire.

After 12 miles of travelling, which took 4 hours, we arrived at Lymm, in beautiful sunshine.

Lymm is a lovely little town full of small bars and restaurants including: Italian, Turkish, Mediteranian, Indian and Chinese. So we are spoilt for choice.

We decided to stay for another day here, but had no internet connection so we shuffled the boat around, and we are now connected.

This morning we took Wallace around the Lymm Dam

Lymm is quite an affluent place, with even the public toilets having an oriental sound to them

We will be setting off again tomorrow.

Feeling apprehensive about the weather, we set off at 11.00am

We have now joined the Bridgewater Canal.

At Bridgewater Boatyard we removed our wet weather gear as it had become to hot.

The canal water became a yellow/orange colour due to the minerals in the surrounding area.

We passed through Worsley on the outskirts of Manchester, and the buildings looked amazing.

We then had to cross the Manchester Ship Canal. This is achieved by using the Barton Swing Aqueduct Bridge. A great feat of engineering. The aqueduct has hydraulic plates that will seal the aqueduct on either end, and another set of plates seal the canal ends. The aqueduct/bridge is then rotated to allow large vessels using the Manchester Ship Canal to pass.

We luckily escaped the rain, and are now moored outside the Trafford Centre.

If you have never heard of it. It is the second biggest shopping centre in the UK. We did visit it this afternoon, but after spending 2 hours, and not completing a lap of the lower floor, we gave up.

May be a late start tomorrow.

We left Dover Bridge this morning, after a day of rain, but a much needed break.

We are now back to our normal pace.

We stopped at Leigh near Manchester for water and supplies. And to be honest after looking around the centre, that is all it is good for.

Continuing on we realised that at Astley Green, there was a museum of the coal industry including Astley Colliery. So we went and had a look

We were informed that they would be starting the pit head engines up and if we wanted to see it working we were more than welcome.

At the height of production these steam driven engines were lifting 9 ton of coal every 2 minutes. Amazing.

We met a man who worked at the colliery from 1957 -1965, who told us all about the conditions, and the closure programme.  Astley closed in 1972, although it was one of the most successful pits.

Tomorrow we will be in Manchester. Wendy wants to visit the Trafford Centre..



We set off early yeterday, and arrived at the top of the Wigan flight of locks at 10.30. We then both filled up with water.

The weather was fantastic, warm and sunny.

Pete & Mark then went into action preparing the locks. Wendy and Jean steered the boats.

We had a flight of 21 locks, followed by another 2 later on.

Pete & Mark soon had a good system going, and Wendy & Jean were entering and leaving locks together, like synchronized boating.

The first 12 locks went very well. Then we hit a problem. A boat in front of us had stopped for lunch, but had left a lock paddle open.This drained the water in the pound he was in, and the one we were approaching.

A  British Waterways official turned up, and advised us to stop in the lock. He then went back up and drained water from pounds above us. As more and more water came towards us, we opened one paddle in the lock we were in, to start filling the pound below This delayed us for about half an hour, but gave us a chance to have a bite to eat and a drink..

Finally we moved on, but we found other locks, which had paddles left partly opened.

After 4 hours we had completed the flight. Shortly after, we came to Wigan Junction. Straight ahead, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal continues its course to Liverpool. To the left is the Leigh Branch, which is the route we took.

After negotiating the final two locks, we started to hit countryside again, passing Scotman Flash (pictured above) a resevoir used to fill the Nortern canal systems.

Finally we arrived at Dover Bridge, where we moored up by The Dover Lock Inn, for a much needed meal and drink.

We have 2-1/2 miles of the canal before we leave the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, having completed 97 miles, 87 locks, 40 swing bridges in 25 days (9 days of which were spent at Hapton)

We will be joining the Bridgewater Canal tomorrow, as today we are having a well deserved rest day.

We  are also saying goodbye to Mark & Jean, as they are moving on today. They have been great company and we will miss them.