Ellesmere Port June 2019

We were able to get away for a week at the start of June - we're going to have a full two weeks later in the summer when we plan to do the Cheshire Ring, so we had to decide what to do with this shorter break. We opted to tick off Ellesmere Port from our list - it is the extreme northern end of the Shropshire Union canal, and also has the National Boat Museum, so it is somewhere we had down to get to, and a week seemed like a fairly easy round trip. Our plan was to crank it down to Ellesmere Port on the first few days, so that we could come back in a much more leisurely fashion on the return. Loulie needed to be back home on Friday evening for a horse event on the Saturday, and we didn't want to be under time pressure.

Ready to sail

We actually set off on the Thursday evening (30th May). We drove down to the marina and put the dogs and luggage aboard, then Loulie drove home, and cycled back up to Preston Brook, while I took the boat out and met her under the M56 bridge. We put the bike on board, and got through the tunnel at half three, which put us through the Saltersford tunnel at half five. At the Barnton we had to wait as there was a boat coming the other way. As we stood there we thought we could hear music, and sure enough when the boat came out there was someone playing the violin in the stern. We wanted to get on as far as we could that evening, and in the end we moored in a spot we have used before, just short of Wincham bend.

Bed shenanigens

The next day we pushed on to Middlewich, and took on water just below Big Lock. After going up that one and the three-lock flight we refuelled at Kings Lock, and then turned onto the Branch of the Shroppie. We went up the Wardle and Stanthorne locks, then moored out in the country at a remote spot. The next day we stopped in the morning at the Aqueduct Marina for a pumpout, then found ourselves in long queues for the final two locks on the Branch, before turning right at Barbridge and heading for Chester. Down the Bunbury staircase, and then we met some first-time hirers and did a couple of locks with them. They stopped at the Shady Oak, and we went on a bit and moored well out from the bank, on the usual Shroppie shelf.

We planned to get all the way to Ellesmere Port the next day (Sunday) so we got off fairly early. Soon after we started we passed Tattenhall Marina, where our adventures with Eileen all began last year. The new people from yesterday caught up with us at the first of the five locks down into Chester, so we did those with them - I found the bicycle really useful on this flight, which are spaced out so that walking is rather slow. We stopped in the pool in Chester and did some shopping, then carried on down the three-lock staircase under the shadow of the city walls. This is quite spectacular - each lock drops you about 11 foot, but because of the way the staircase works, the gates are looming twice that height above you when you are at the bottom.

We emerged into the basin at the bottom, where a flight of locks leads down tot he River Dee - the bottom lock is permanently closed now. We went on through the suburbs of Chester, around the zoo and then headed off across the flatlands of the Wirrall towards Ellesmere Port. It must be said that the surrounding became less salubrious as we travelled, and we decided we did not want to moor close to that end of the canal. So we reached the Boat Museum, turned in the pool there, above the three locks which lead down to the Ship Canal, and headed back the way we had come. We eventually moored at quite a nice spot near the village of Stoak, on an Armco bank with no shelf.

The next morning the engine wasn't keen to start, though it caught eventually, and we noticed that the starter battery was very flat, and there were warning lights on the battery control panel. We called Matthew at the NNC, and tried doing a few things he suggested to relay power between the batteries, but nothing seemed to work. We decided we would take Eileen in to Nantwich the next day, to get it looked at, so we wanted to get on as far as we could. We went back up the staircase flight - even more imposing when you enter from the bottom and look up at the lock doors above you - and then we worked up the five locks out of Chester. We kept going up Wharton's Lock and we eventually ran out of light above the second Beeston lock, the Stone Lock.

The next morning when we tried to start up there was no charge in the battery, so we had to call the NNC for help, and waited for a couple of hours until someone came. In the end all he had to do was put a jump lead across from the leisure battery bank to the starter, and that got us going, but of course we needed to get the problem fixed, so we carried on to Nantwich anyway, arriving late in the afternoon, after a very wet trip in the pouring rain. They couldn't do anything then, so we slept overnight in the finger moorings in the boatyard.

In the morning I cycled off to Sainsbury's on the other side of town, and when I got back I discovered that the engineer had found and fixed the problem, which happily was not a failed alternator but only a loose connection. He also advised us to rev the engine hard on starting each time, to get the charger to kick in properly. We were back on the canal by lunchtime, and now we were under no time pressure, so we cruised to Barbridge and then did the first two locks on the Branch before mooring at a nice spot just past Church Minshull. I went for a run on the towpath, which was no fun as the footing was horribly uneven, and the Strava app which I used to track the run lost credibility when I told me that I had done 50 feet of climb - on the towpath.

On Thursday morning we started without hurry, and found ourselves in queues at Stanthorne and Wardle locks. However when we turned north to do the three-flight and Big Lock it was quiet again. We picked up water below Big Lock and did some shopping, and then decided to push on through some rainy weather, eventually mooring near Wincham at the same spot we had a week ago. On Friday morning we again had an easy start, through Saltersford at 13:00 and Preston Brook at 15:00. Loulie cycled home to get the car, and I moored very comfortably in calm weather back at the marina. Quite an eventful trip, but good fun, and Mabel seems to enjoy the boat as much as the Labradors - it's only Ruby that hates it. We can cross Ellesmere Port off our bucket list - it's not a stretch of canal we're likely to want to revisit very often, I think.

Voyage: 56.75 hours. 105.8 miles. 46 locks.

Prologue - 29th June 2018

This blog will record our voyages in the narrowboat Eileen Dover. So this first entry puts me in a bit of a dilemma. As it took place before we had renamed her, does this count as a journey in the Eileen Dover at all? So if we call it a prologue, then we can regard it as attached to the main story, though not necessarily part of it.

We picked up our new boat - still called The Silver Kroner at that time - from Tattenhall Marina on Friday June 29th. We wanted to get a bit of work done on her, and where better than the place where she was built, the Navigation Narrowboat Company in Nantwich. So our first voyage would be 12 miles down the Shropshire Union, under a glorious sun.

We collected the boat from Stephen Harral at Ash Boats, the brokerage where we had found her. Great service from Stephen - he drove to Nantwich so that we could leave the car there to get us home. He also took us round to the fuelling point at Tattenhall - as we have only sailed hire boats previously, we have never had to take on fuel (or pump out - though that's still in our future).

On the fuelling point at Tattenhall

We set out some time after one o'clock, and immediately encountered a challenge. The T-junction out of the marina onto the main line is fairly tight, and the wind was against us, blowing the bows left when we needed to turn right. It seemed to be going OK, but then as we were about to emerge we saw another boat coming and had to stop. We also waited while a group of paddleboarders went past, and by that time we had drifted into a poor position to get round. I tried, but only put the bows into the opposite bank, so in the end I did what I should have done in the first place, reversed all the way back clear of the entrance and started again. This time it went well, and we were on our way.

We had six locks to manage, and at the first, Wharton's Lock, we caught up with another boat, so Loulie had someone to share the work. For now she prefers me to do the navigation while she works the gates, though that may change on days when the effort becomes too much. The next lock is Beeston Iron Lock, which is twisted so they recommend you don't put two boats in together, and we had to wait our turn. It's a bit of a bummer altogether - the pound below the lock is shallow, especially by the bank, so you have to hang way back rather than pulling in close to the bottom gates.

Waiting below Beeston Iron Lock

The next couple of locks were rather easier - Beeston Stone Lock and Tilstone Lock, out in the country. As we approached Bunbury we were rather surprised to see ahead of us two boats winding, roped together side by side - very smartly done. It turned out they were hire craft, being turned and taken back to their moorings to be made ready for hirers the next day. It gave us a small problem, trying to hold still in the breeze in a rather narrow and shelving section of the canal - no doubt I will get better at handling her. At 57' she is significantly longer than the boats we have hired previously, and it took a bit of getting used to.

Tilstone Lock

Bunbury is a two-lock staircase. We had caught up our companions again, so the two of us went up while a single boat came down. It's a busy spot, with plenty of tourists watching, and fortunately we had a CRT volunteer to help organise things. I had to cross over the lock behind the single boat coming down, and this time I was happy with the way it went.

That was the last lock for the day, so now it was relatively plain sailing - the biggest challenge were the paddleboarders who are a little like cyclists - they go just a bit slower than you want to, but you need to be very careful overtaking them. We went on past Barbridge Junction, and the entrance to the link through to Middlewich, currently blocked by a breach. It was getting well on into the evening now, and the canal was pretty quiet as we passed the end of the Llangollen and nosed our way into the pool at Nantwich, where we tied up at the dock by the boatbuilders. One of the minor problems they were going to sort was that the engine would not cut out on command (probably a fuse gone in the solenoid circuit). So I had to open the engine hatch and reach carefully round the side of the engine, under the air filter, to find the right button. Hopefully I won't have to do that again. We unloaded our stuff into the car, locked up and left The Silver Kroner to be transformed.

Today: 12 miles. 6 locks. 6 hours.