End of the line

Saturday 27th July

We made a fairly leisurely start today. John went for a run first thing, back all the way into Marple, a bit over four miles for the round trip. Then Loulie took the girls for a proper long walk, down into the valley of the Goyt below the canal. We set off eventually some time after eleven, and headed up the valley towards Whalley Bridge and the end of the canal. 

This is a curious landscape. We are well into the Peak District, so the canal is following a narrow winding valley, with spectacular hills rising on either side - we had a view of Kinder Scout at one point. But the small towns we are passing through - Disley, New Mills, Furness Vale - grew up around the cotton mills, mining and other centres of the early Industrial Revolution. And of course the canal was at the centre of that. So it is bordered in places by small factories - some old and picturesque, some modern and ugly - and rows of terraced houses. Then you are back winding through heavy woodland with hills glimpsed beyond.

It started to rain as we set off, and essentially didn't stop all day. We were in no hurry, and travelled slowly up to New Mills, then Furness Vale, where we spotted a workshop beside the canal which is the base of Andy Russell, who painted Eileen, and whose signature (“Lovingly Hand Painted by Andy Russell”) appears on many of the nicest-looking boats.

We pressed on down to the end of the canal, which is Y-shaped, with two arms of about half a mile each. The first one goes down into Whalley Bridge, where it ends in a small triangular basin next to a warehouse which was built in around 1800 when the canal reached the town. There's a water point there, and we filled up, about half an hour in the rain. On the way back down that arm we moored again next to a Tesco, and picked up supplies. 

Whalley Bridge Basin

Back at the junction we turned down the other arm to Bugworth Basin, which is a much bigger transhipment area, now preserved by volunteers, with lots of dead end arms and bridges. We had thought of staying overnight, but it was quite crowded, and didn't look like our sort of place. As we left we passed a boatload of drunken young men, all crowded in the stern of their hire boat, and we were very glad we had made the right decision.

Bugsworth Basin

We were aiming to moor close to the spot we had occupied last night, but in the end we found a place a few hundred yards short which looked good, and moored there, on the edge of Disley. We were opposite some houses, which meant we felt a little embarrassed when our dogs wouldn’t stop barking, but at least we were out of the rain at last.

Map at 27-7-19

TODAY: 7.5 HOURS. 9.2 MILES. 0 LOCKS. 2 BRIDGEs.

VOYAGE: 39.9 HOURS. 50.4 MILES. 43 LOCKS. 4 BRIDGES