The Pennington Dog Poisoner

We were expecting today to be non-stop heavy rain, but we really needed to get through the Manchester urban sprawl to find a mooring that would suit the dogs. So I decided that I would just put on all my wet weather gear and endure it, so that we would have a run through Wigan tomorrow.

However, when we got up it was only raining lightly, and even that dropped away quite soon. By 10:00 it was quite pleasant, though the wind was stronger than we had expected - we were quite happy to trade that for a dry day. So we set off, and soon we were into the built up areas, Altrincham and Sale. Although James Brindley's canals tend to be very twisting, following the contours, the stretch through Sale is dead straight, because this area was flat empty farmland and moss when the canal was built. It only grew into the major population centre that it is now during the late Victorian era and the early twentieth century, as a commuter belt for Manchester. Although the straight, wide canal is rather dull, it does provide perfect conditions for rowing, and we saw a quad scull just being taken out of the water half way along.

The A56 north of Sale

Graffiti in Stretford

We moored near Sale town centre to do a bit of shopping, and Loulie walked the dogs. We then carried on north, and soon came to Waters Meeting in Stretford. Here the canal turns north west towards Worsley, and the other arm goes north east into the centre of Manchester. We took the Worsley direction, and had another couple of miles dead straight, through industrial estates around Trafford Park. We passed the Kellogg's factory, where until the 70s grain was delivered by canal from Liverpool, and a strong smell of baking filled the air.

Waters Meeting

Kellogg's Factory Canal Entrance

The Trafford Centre

We could have moored at the Trafford Centre to do some more purchasing, but we kept going, and crossed over the Manchester Ship Canal on the Barton Swing Bridge, a remarkable aqueduct which can swing, like a huge bath of water, if a tall ship is using the canal below. You feel very exposed high up in the air - the bridge isn't much wider than your boat and you are very close to the edge.

Barton Aqueduct

Lighthouse at Monton

After that we sailed through Barton and up to Worsley, past the mine entrance which provided the whole purpose of the canal in the first place. On the way we passed under the Liverpool-Manchester railway - the first proper canal in Britain crossing the first major railway. The canal water around the Worsley area is a strange ochre, from the dissolved minerals coming out of the mine - the canal literally goes right into the workings, and they used to have boats on several levels underground.

Worsley Delph

Zoomed in on the mine entrances

Leaving Worsley

Winding Gear (preserved) at Astley Green

Sign at Bridgewater Marina

We were now going pretty much west, and the strong south wind was blowing off the towpath, so that when I stopped to let Loulie off again with the dogs we had a bit of a struggle to keep the boat in to the side. We were starting to think about somewhere to stop, but the canal here has clearly been improved in recent times, and the banks are very high and hard concrete or steel pilings, not an attractive place to moor. So we continued, coming in to Leigh which is very much an old industrial Lancashire town, with large factories in various states of decay or restoration, and terraced houses right down to the canal bank.

Old factories in Leigh

In Leigh we reached the end of the Bridgewater Canal, where it turns into the Leeds and Liverpool - this was once a key link in the canal network of North West England. It's not very dramatic, just a notice on a bridge - but from this point on the bridges all have numbers, not names. The wind was getting very strong now, and at one point a fluky gust off a building caught us from the wrong side and we were stuck against the bank for a few moments.

Sculpture at the joining of the canals

End of the Bridgewater

Waterside pub in Leigh

After leaving Leigh we were back out into more open country - pockmarked with remnants of the mining industry, hills which were spoil heaps and flashes where water has filled the subsidence of the land. This has been made into a country park, and we moored in the middle of this. Loulie took the dogs down to the flashes for a swim, and only afterwards saw a notice about toxic blue-green algae in the water. A worried call to our out-of-hours vet brought the information that if they weren't showing symptoms by now then they were OK - the algae is at its greatest big risk in hot dry weather. So we settled down for the night, though it is going to be bumpy - the wind is strong and blowing us off the bank, so our mooring ropes constantly pull us back with a thud.

Today: 7 hours. 20.1 miles. 0 locks.

Voyage: 13 hours. 33.1 miles. 0 locks.