Day out

Owning Eileen Dover is not just about epic journeys around the Four Counties Ring - we also intend to take small trips out, overnight or even just for one day. This was the first such, just a short jaunt up the Bridgewater towards Manchester. We have been this way before, but it is somehow different when it's your own boat.

Loulie took me down to the marina and we loaded various stuff onto the boat, then she went back home for the dogs. I took the boat out - it all went well at first, as I reversed out of our mooring neatly without fouling any other boats. I was pleased, because it is pretty tight. However, as I went forward and turned towards the exit I misjudged the curve as the wind pushed me towards the piers, and bumped against the stern of a boat before I could get away. It could have been worse, stuck on a lee shore, but I need to allow more room for windage in future. Most of the canal network is fairly sheltered, with trees and cuttings, but the marina is a large open space and the wind has more chance to make itself felt.

After that it all went fine, as I left the marina and turned north on the main line. I picked up Loulie and the dogs at Keckwick Lane bridge, and we headed out. We had no very firm plan, basically just head for Lymm and see how far we got before we needed to moor. We also wanted to get a feel for how long it would take to get to various landmarks. As it turns out we got to Grappenhall in two hours, and Thelwall (where we moor for the Little Manor) in two and a half. Loulie took the helm for a while on the approach to Lymm, but handed it back to me for the tricky bit through the middle, with boats moored on both sides.

It took us about three hours to get to Lymm, and on the other side we stopped to feed the dogs, and give them a walk. After I had picked up the crew we went on for a short while, past the Old Number Three, and moored close to Dunham Massey, just before the aqueduct over the river Bollin. Off the towpath there's a steep (but not dangerous) slope down to open rough ground - perfect for the dogs. It's an ideal mooring - we can just let them off, and the worst thing that can happen is that Minnie will go for a swim. We decided we should not feel we have to eat out every time we're on the boat, and so we just had spaghetti on board, rather than a meal at the Swan.

Moored near Dunham Massey by the Bollin Aqueduct

As usual, we were woken much earlier than we would have liked, especially on a Sunday morning. It did mean we could take our time, and we went for a walk with the dogs. We went along the aqueduct, and then dropped down to the River Bollin below. Bridget loved this - she seems to like water that is moving, like the river or the sea, and she bounded around like Tigger.

We were facing east, and we had to travel nearly two miles that way before we could find a winding hole and turn to come back. The bow thruster stopped working properly while we were winding - possibly there is something like weed blocking it. This and the wind which had got up gave me some concerns for mooring when we got back to the marina.

That was some distance away though, and we pottered slowly back the way we had come yesterday. We moored in Lymm to get some food, and the dogs had a walk, then we continued. There are a lot of day boats on hire on this stretch at the weekends, from Preston Brook, Stockton Heath and further afield, and they don't stick to the rules very well. You can usually spot them by the speed they are doing, and when I met one on a bend in Grappenhall he seemed to have forgotten which side to pass and tried to go down my starboard side. Fortunately he understood my frantic hand signals before we met with a crunch.

I dropped Loulie and the dogs at Keckwick Lane and carried on to the marina, with some trepidation. However it all went very well, despite the lack of bow thrusters. The trick is to take everything dead slow, and reverse and re-approach if necessary, rather than trying to do the whole thing in a dynamic swooping move. A narrowboat has no grip, and wind and the effect of banks and shallows mean that she doesn't always follow the line you are expecting. I lined her up carefully into our moorings, and slid slowly between the other boats without touching anything - very nice.

Voyage: 9 hours. 29.4 miles. 0 locks.

Home stretch

Today was the final race for the line, after eight days and more than 100 miles. In fact it wasn’t really a race, more of a stroll, as this was the easiest day of the journey, with only one lock (and that one having a drop of about 4 inches). We were back in familiar waters too – we have sailed these stretches on most of the hire boat holidays we have taken in the past.

Morning on the Flashes

Safe from the puppy

After leaving the flashes we pottered through the countryside, past a couple of new marinas which has been built in the last couple of years. One of the nicest odours on the canal came next as we reached Roberts Bakery, and then Rudheath and the Old Broken Cross pub, a landmark on the network.

Lostock Works

Just beyond that we sailed right through the Lostock Soda Ash plant, now owned by Tata Chemicals, but part of ICI when I started work in Northwich. Wincham Wharf has a lot of boatbuilding facilities, but under a bridge and you are suddenly winding through the countryside. The Lion Salt Works at Marston is being restored, with a Real Ale festival under way as we passed, and then you pass through Marbury Country Park. Anderton is next, and as we approached a boat unexpectedly popped out of the boat lift, which is clearly back in operation.

Although there are no locks, the top end of the Trent and Mersey is dominated by tunnels. First is Barnton, where you have to creep up to the tunnel mouth until you can see if anyone is coming through. If they are – as was the case for us today – you hurriedly pull yourself over to the side out of the way until the boat pops out, then you go back and have another look.

Passing through this tunnel, which is about 500m long, you emerge into a strange pool before the next tunnel, with trees on one side, and grassy slopes leading up the houses in Barnton on the other. It feels very isolated, with just a few boats moored there, and the waiting points for the tunnels.

Saltersford tunnel is a little shorter, but you cannot see right through so it is controlled on a time basis. Northbound you can only enter between the hour and twenty past. Southbound it is half past to ten to the hour. This means there is a minimum ten minute buffer, which is enough for a boat to clear the tunnel comfortably.

After we had done the tunnel Loulie got off with the dogs for a walk, then we carried on to Dutton and the Preston Brook tunnel. The stop lock is nearly redundant – this year the water levels in the two canals are so close that you can open the gates without operating the sluices. This tunnel is much the longest of the three at nearly 1200m, and it also uses a timed operating system, though this time the window is only ten minutes after the hour or half hour, so there is a twenty minute buffer. Despite its length it is quite possible to see all the way through the tunnel.

Preston Brook Tunnel

Rather than turning up the Runcorn branch to the marina straight away we went up the main line, winded (turned) at Moore then came back to Keckwick Lane, where I dropped off Loulie and the dogs. This is only half a mile from our house, so Loulie could take the car to the marina ready to meet me there and take the luggage home.

Loulie steering

I entered the marina gingerly, and found our pier with Loulie’s help. I had to turn round then manoeuvre carefully in past other moored craft – and then we decided we were on the wrong side of the pier for our nominated berth, so I had to back her out and go in again on the other side. All of this was further hampered by a stiff breeze – Eileen is rather high-sided and the wind affects her significantly – and in the end I was quite happy with my first attempt at marina parking.

Home at last

We packed everything into the car, and it was off home for fish and chips. It has been a great week – although it was forced upon us by the Middlewich breach, I am really glad we had this first shake-down cruise. We have learned a lot about the boat and how to get the best out of her, and we have been getting better at it all week. We have some ideas about changes we will get done over the winter, but we will be spending a lot of time on board before then.

Today: 8.5 hours. 15.9 miles. 1 lock.

Voyage: 68 hours. 116.8 miles. 97 locks.

Rain, cold, and feeling flat

Today started at 5am when the dogs kicked off, probably woken by a nearby cockerel greeting the pale dawn. I had to take them out for a tiddle, and Minnie took the opportunity for an early morning swim, so Loulie had to towel her down before we could all go back to bed.

Things didn’t get any better when we got up at a slightly more normal hour and prepared to set off. When I went to start the engine there wasn’t the slightest flicker of response, and looking at the battery control panel in the cabin it was clear that the starter battery was totally flat. After a bit of thinking we realised that I had made a tiny but consequential error the night before. The ignition key starts at top dead centre for Off, then there are three clockwise positions – On (normal running), Heat (to warm the engine before starting) and Start. To turn the engine off you have to rotate the key anticlockwise past top dead centre to activate a solenoid which kills the motor. When I removed the key last night I left it in the 11 o’clock position, and the solenoid was permanently activated through the night, flattening the battery entirely.

We called Matthew at the Navigation Narrowboat Company, who confirmed the cause of the problem, and came out to rescue us. Although it is a week since we left there, we were less than ten miles from Nantwich, on the parallel canal. He came out with a replacement battery which he installed, and all was fine. These batteries are powerful but fragile, and running it down to zero will have permanently ruined it, so the new battery has replaced the old one.

An expensive lesson, but I won’t make that mistake again. Each time we stop Loulie amusingly reminds me to get the key in the right place when I switch off, and I demonstrate, using my middle finger, that I have left it in the vertical position.

So it was after half ten when we set off, and we still had to get to Middlewich for a pumpout. That wouldn’t have been a problem, but it came on to rain, very heavily, with a cold wind. We would have liked to batten down the hatches and sit out the storm, but we needed to keep moving. I was standing on the poop discovering that my hat is showerproof but not rainproof, and Loulie had to get out to work eight locks, so we were both freezing and soaked.

John in the rain

We stopped at Kings Lock to take on diesel. All these things are dead easy when you have done them once, but tricky the first time. There is an odd little key for the diesel filler cap – you have to insert it and then rotate it 90 degrees, at which point you can unscrew the cap. Easy. But it’s not obvious that it is 90 degrees, rather than 180, say. Nor is it clear that you unscrew the cap – you might flip it off on a hinge, or push in the centre like a button. So you try lots of different combinations, hanging head down over the stern rail to reach the cap, until something works.

We then went down the three-lock flight in the centre of Middlewich, made much easier by the team of volunteers helping to work the locks, which took the load off Loulie, though it did slow her down from her normal slick operation. Below those locks we stopped at Andersen’s boat yard for a pumpout – again our first time, and it was useful to have someone else doing it so I could watch. The guy told me all about the effect of the canal breach on their business – very severe, because most of their hirers want to go out along that branch to get to the Llangollen, Chester or Audlem. So he has lots of boats sitting around after cancellations. It has had a bad effect on a lot of canalside businesses, and they get no compensation.

We stopped below Big Lock to take on water and do some shopping, then headed out into the open country between Middlewich and Northwich. We have moored opposite an open flash which borders the canal – though there are lots of warnings that it is too shallow to take a narrowboat onto. Minnie disgraced herself by getting onto at least three other boats when we went for a walk – it’s becoming a bad habit, though so far people have only been amused, as most of them have dogs too.

If all goes well we should be back at Preston Brook tomorrow. We have less that 14 miles to go, and just the tiny stop lock at Dutton, though there are three tunnels. We are very sorry the trip is coming to an end, it has been quite an experience, and the early days going down the Shroppie already seem like an age ago. It will be very odd to be back on dry land again.

A pile of dogs

Today: 6.5 hours. 10.3 miles. 9 locks.

Voyage: 59.5 hours. 100.9 miles. 96 locks.

Lost communications and a berth in the weeds

Question – what good is one walkie-talkie? I’m not sure if that would be a walkie, or a talkie, but in any event the answer is – not much use. We bought a pair before we set off in order to make it easy to communicate in locks – we saw someone using them on a previous trip and thought we’d try them. They work very well, they save a lot of shouting and waving, and with a range of over a mile they come in useful in many contexts. However my unit has stopped working now, so the one that is left has nothing to communicate with. At least we think it has stopped working - we can’t be sure as it is lying at the bottom of the canal. I carried it clipped to the outside of a pocket, where it was easy to grab, but as I was getting onto the boat at a lock a rope caught it and pulled it out of the pocket. It bounced off the side of the boat and into the water with a very terminal “plop”!

Posie fascinated by some moorhen chicks

We had a major lie-in this morning, as the dogs allowed us to sleep until twenty to eight. Bridget had another run through the field of maize before we got under way at about 9:15. We had a busy day ahead of us, with 20 locks down to Wheelock. Altogether from the exit to Harecastle Tunnel down to Wheelock there are 26 locks in about seven miles, a stretch known as Heartbreak Hill. We did six of them last night before mooring, and now we had to complete the run.

On the canals going downhill is no easier than going up, and in some ways harder, for the helmsman at least. You need to be alert while in the locks, to keep well forward away from the cil or lip at the base of the upstream lock door. If you get this caught under the stern of your boat as the level drops the bows will be forced under water, and in extreme cases you can sink. For the person operating the locks down is as hard as up – there are as many heavy gates to open and paddles to crank.

Church Locks

One of the oddities of this part of the canal is that many of the locks are doubled – two single-boat locks side by side. This is intended to speed up traffic, and it does. It is different from the double-sized locks on some other canals (such as the northern Shroppie) where two boats travel together in one wide lock. That style is wasteful of water when a single boat uses the lock on its own, and you can get swirled around a lot.

Brindley's bridge and Telford's side by side.

Mow Cop from Lowton

We met an old man at our first lock, and he walked with us for a while, telling us some of the local canal history. The Trent & Mersey was built by James Brindley in the 1770s (he is buried just a few miles from where we moored last night) but it was improved in many places fifty years later by Thomas Telford, who also built the Shroppie. He was responsible for doubling most of the locks on this hill, and also other improvements including the removal of a staircase at Lawton, which caused delays. The man showed us a bridge where Brindley had built one arch in brick. Then later when Telford built the second parallel lock he added a second arch, but this time in stone.

Disused lock at Pavilion

Built to last

Although notionally all but one of these lock were doubled, in practice several of them have subsided or fallen into disuse, so the pair becomes a normal single. Loulie also found the locks very heavy to work, with stiff doors and paddle mechanisms which were almost impossible to shift. Without the ratchet windlass handle she would have been unable to do them at all.

The M6 again

Because the distance is so short the locks kept coming in unrelenting fashion. At one point there was a gap of about a mile, and Loulie got off to give the dogs a walk, but other than that there didn’t seem time for lunch or even a cup of tea. The double locks do make things quicker if someone is already using one when you arrive, but it’s hard to tell from a distance which lock you will be using, and I had a few awkward manoeuvres when I had to get across from the lock mooring to the opposite side in a short space. At Hassall Green we worked the lock in the shadow of the M6, last seen on Monday down near Stafford, about 25 minutes away by motorway. At half two we realised that we had done 18 of the 20 locks, so we took a break for lunch.

After eating, and retrieving Bridget from a golf course, we did the last two locks and moored just the other side of Wheelock, exactly where we stopped in Bunbury Mill (a hire boat) on 27^th June. Only six weeks ago, but it seems an age – having our own boat has completely changed our approach to the canals. This also means that we have closed the loop – we have now sailed every mile and every lock of the Four Counties Ring, in a variety of boats and at different times.

Snug moorings

We had dinner at the same Italian restaurant we used in June, having promised them we would be back in our own boat – though we also brought an extra dog. We are moored very snugly in some high bankside vegetation, with enough of a gap at the stern to get ourselves and the dogs through. Tomorrow is Middlewich, and some pumpout excitement.

It's not the poop deck, it's the pup deck.

Today: 6.5 hours. 5.3 miles. 20 locks.

Voyage: 53 hours. 90.6 miles. 87 locks.

Freeze Dried Skipper

Getting our own narrowboat has meant lots of changes and new experiences in our lives. Who, for example, would have predicted that Loulie would spend over an hour Googling to find out how much poo and other waste an average human produces each day. The answer is approximately 10 litres, if you need to know.

Early Morning Train

We were woken just before seven this morning, not by the trains but by the first passing boat of the day. We were in a great spot for the dogs, who could just be let off the boat with minimal supervision, and we had the usual game of musical breakfasts. Posie and Bridget dive into their food like Scooby-Doo with a plate of burgers, but Minnie is always slow, and Ruby nibbles at hers and then goes to push Minnie away. Minnie happily eats Ruby’s food, but at this point one or both of the Gobble twins finish theirs and try to push in on the food that has not yet been eaten. Unless she is protected Minnie will diffidently sneak off to see if there is anything left in any of the other bowls. By the end each dog has usually sampled some or all of the other bowls – except Bridget’s – nobody gets between Bridget and her food.

The stories of the day were Stoke, and Harecastle Tunnel. After a single lock at Trentham we started to approach the city, and the nature of the canal changed significantly. We went past a wagon works with hundreds of pairs of railway wheels lined up, and an estate with light industrial businesses. On either side there were high walls and fences, dilapidated and graffiti-covered, and derelict buildings slowly succumbing to weeds and trees. In the centre of Stoke the canal went up a flight of five steep locks, threading through canyons of brick and concrete. The railway quite literally runs over the top of one of the locks.

Milepost in Stoke

 

Scenes along the Stoke canal

At the top of the flight is Etruria Junction, where the Caldon Canal takes off east towards Leek. But we had other things on our mind, as we were looking for a pumpout station. We had noticed that the gauge on our waste tank was above half way, having started at zero, so we probably would not make it all the way home. There were a few pumpout locations marked on our maps, and the first one was the Black Prince base at Festival Park Marina. We stopped, but the one person there had just gone for his lunch, and there was another boat already waiting, so we decided not to waste what might be a couple of hours. We were told there was another place not far north so we pushed on.

We left central Stoke, and came to Middleport where there is a pottery with an impressive bottle kiln, one of several which can still be seen along the canal, although a century ago there were hundreds. This one was hosting a travelling exhibition of the poppies which started out a few years ago cascading down the side of the Tower of London. In this case they were in a stream down the side of the kiln – very impressive, though sadly we got only a sudden glimpse and didn’t have time for any photos.

Bottle Kilns - but no poppies

After Middleford was Longford, where we pulled in again to get a pumpout, but the guy there told us the machine was bust, and also told us, with little obvious sympathy, that there wasn’t another one until the other side of the tunnel.

The tunnel in question is the Harecastle, one of the wonders of the canal network. It is nearly 3000 metres long, and takes forty minutes or more to traverse, under the control of gatekeepers. As we approached it started to rain heavily, and it took me a while to notice the keeper signalling me to pull over on the “wrong” side as six boats were about to emerge. That meant that I had to leap out hurriedly and rope her into the bank, against a squally wind which had sprung up along with the driving rain. Happily Loulie had the presence of mind to duck down into the dry cabin, from where she was able to record my struggles.

Boating in the rain

Once the southbound convoy had emerged we were able to start, but the keeper gave me a briefing first. The tunnel has a variable profile, and gets very low near the middle, so people have hit their heads and even been knocked off the boat. I was told to use a torch so I could see the roof after the boat lights (in the bows) had passed, and Loulie was told to keep checking I was still on the boat. The dogs had to stay below, and she stayed with them, to avoid incessant barking.

To allow motor-powered boats to use it the tunnel now has a forced draft ventilation. After you enter they close doors behind you and turn on enormous fans which cause wind strong enough to make your eyes water. Of course I was soaked through already, so it was a little chilly, to say the least. Ahead is pitch black at first, beyond the range of your headlight, but soon a tiny dot appears, and grows, very slowly. Every hundred metres there are arrows on the walls, indicating the distance to the nearer exit, and it was very discouraging, after what seemed like hours but was probably 10-15 minutes, to see an arrow pointing backwards 1000m. You have to concentrate hard to keep the boat in the middle – if you start to veer you either slide along the walls or bounce from side to side. In the light of the torch there is a lot to see in the tunnel – orange stalactites where water has seeped through the ironstone rock, streams pouring out of holes in the wall, straps and supports to keep the rock in place, and the abrupt changes in profile – I really did need to keep a good lookout and duck at times.

North exit from the Harecastle Tunnel

It was a relief to emerge at the other end, especially as it was bright sunshine again, shining on the orange water which has come from those ironstone seams. We dropped down a couple of locks as the Macclesfield Canal branched off – it goes to the left, then turns and crosses above the main line once that has dropped far enough, quite an impressive junction. Here there was a CRT (Canal & River Trust) station, so we stopped for a pumpout – only to be told once again that it was broken. The next one is in Middlewich, which is why Loulie consulted our manual to check the tank capacity, and then Google to see how long that would last. The conclusion is that we should be OK.

Mow Cop from the Red Bull locks

We had reached our day’s target in Kidsgrove, but there was no good overnight mooring, so we dropped down the three locks of the Red Bull flight, with Mow Cop looking down on us, and we found a very snug mooring near the village of Church Lawton. I took the dogs for a walk after supper, through a field of maize. They loved charging through the crop, especially Bridget. You couldn’t see her, but you could follow her progress by the noise, and by the waving of the tops of the stalks as she rampaged through.

Mooring near Church Lawton

We are in a steep part of the canal, dropping down to the Cheshire plain, the equivalent of Audlem and Adderley over on the Shroppie. Our plan for tomorrow only covers five miles, but there will be twenty locks in there. We hope to reward ourselves with a meal out in Wheelock.

Why doesn't she hurry up and serve our supper?

Today: 7 hours. 14 miles. 12 locks.

Voyage: 46.5 hours. 85.3 miles. 67 locks.