On the Road Again

 Wednesday 2^nd September 2020

Wednesday dawned grey but dry. I had a shower last night, because I could not start the engine this morning, it would need to be cold so the mechanic could work around and under it as he lifted it up to get the gearbox off. I had a discussion last week with the NNC people about whether we should replace the gearbox at the same time, as it was going to have to come off as part of the process. It’s fairly clear we are going to have to replace it fairly soon, perhaps over the winter – it has been getting stiffer to get in and out of gear, and failing to go into forward when it’s cold. In the end we decided that it would extend the delay in getting the parts, so we elected just to change the drive plate.

The mechanic arrived on time, and everything seemed to go smoothly. It was all done in less than two hours, and I called Loulie to tell her to pack the pack into Jonjo’s van and set off. They got here with no problems, we moved everything into the boat, and set off at about half one.

I had sent another email asking for a booking for Harecastle tomorrow, and we had a spot on the first passage southbound, setting off at 8am – and we had to be there at 7:30. We did not want to leave ourselves any locks to do in the morning, but there are few and poor moorings on the Trent and Mersey between the top locks and the tunnel. Our plan therefore was to go up the six remaining locks, then turn onto the Macclesfield Canal. This would also allow us to go a couple of miles up the canal to Heritage Narrowboats, where we could get diesel, water and a pumpout.

Soon after we started it began to rain, and it set in to pour hard and steadily for the rest of the day. We worked up six locks, thus completing the twenty six of Heartbreak Hill that we had started in Wheelock a week ago. We turned right onto the Macc and cruised up to the Heritage base, keeping an eye out as we went for suitable moorings for the night. There is one lock on this stretch, the Hall Green stop lock, just one foot of rise, and we soon reached our target. Fuelling and pumpout was very wet, but it meant that we would not have to worry about stopping on the trip south for a few days.

We turned in the mouth of the hire boat basin, and set off back, with Loulie jumping out with the dogs to give them a walk. We went back down the stop lock and moored at a spot we had noted previously; a slightly overgrown bank but not too bad, and well placed for an early arrival at the tunnel mouth in the morning.

 

TODAY: 4:30 HOURS. 4.9 MILES. 8 LOCKS.

Voyage: 15:25 HOURS. 30.8 MILES. 18 LOCKS.

 

Dive dive dive.

Thursday 1^st August

There was a marina/hire boat centre, Heritage Narrowboats, a couple of miles down the canal from our moorings, so we made our way down there and stopped to get a pumpout, diesel and water, so we were up to date on all our services. It is always nice not to have to worry for a while. The pumpout was particularly important, as last year on the Home Run we found a couple of pumpout places broken down, and there are none in any case all the way down from Red Bull Locks in Kidsgrove until you reach Middlewich.

Ramsdell Hall overlooking the Macc

We pressed on then, down to Hall Green Lock, which is actually the end of the Macclesfield Canal and the start of the Trent and Mersey, although you are still about half a mile from the main line of the latter. Apparently when the Macc was built in about 1830 the Trent and Mersey company were concerned about controlling the link and so they built the arm up to Hall Green, where there were two matching stop locks and to end. Nowadays there is just the one (with a drop of one foot four) and then a long narrow channel where the other lock used to be.

After that you sail over the Trent and Mersey main line, turn sharp left and go along parallel, past two locks which bring the main line up to the same level. You then turn sharp left again, which brings you out to a T-junction on the main line at Hardings Wood Junction. To your right is the entrance to Harecastle tunnel, but we turned left to start the long descent of Heartbreak Hill, 26 locks down to Wheelock.

Joining the Trent and Mersey main line at Hardings Wood Junctions

We still had the laptop to sort out, so after the first lock we moored and I cycled up to the computer place, only about half a mile now. I couldn’t get the exact power lead I needed, but they had one which will provide a trickle feed to the battery, so I can power it up over time. I set off back, and as I did so the heavens opened, again, and I was soaked by the time I got to the boat.

That set the scene for the rest of the trip, heavy showers interspersed with dry intervals. We had our eyes on a spot that we used last year on the Home Run, a good mooring with rings on a narrow stretch near Church Lawton, six locks down. When we arrived there was space, though there were half a dozen boats there already. We like to be well away from others, but the alternative was to do another six locks with no guarantee of anything better, so we tied up at around half five.

As I said we were close to Church Lawton, and at eight the campanologists of the church started to practice, going on for the full hour. At the same time the dogs, especially Posie and Mabel, started seeing or hearing things, and barked incessantly to warn us. Perhaps they were particularly sensitive to bad bellringing. All in all it was not a peaceful quiet evening.

Mabel hiding

And it was to get worse. At half eleven we went to take the dogs for their final walk, and I could hear a constant noise. It was like the central heating, but that wasn’t on, and we finally traced it to the automatic bilge pump, which was running constantly. Normally it only operates for a few moments when triggered by a float.

Investigating, I found that there was a steady and fairly rapid leak in through the stern gland where the prop shaft exits the hull. Fortunately, and quite by chance, I had had a conversation with the engineer last week, while we were pumping diesel out of the engine room, so I knew where the greasing screw was, and also where our tube of grease could be found. Did we have the correct Allen key? Knowing Steve Dugdale (the boat’s previous owner) there would be one around somewhere, and indeed I found it.

The challenges were not over – I had to sit on the engine and work well down below my feet – undo the screw without dropping in, screw in the grease tube and squeeze in the right amount, and then get the screw back in place and nicely tight. And talking of nicely tight, I had to do all this after two beers and half a bottle of Prosecco. I was also by no means certain that this would fix the problem, and as I started to squeeze the grease in the drips of water speeded up. However they then suddenly stopped entirely – the grease must have been pushing the water out of the gland, and once it was full of just grease, the dripping stopped. I watched for about ten minutes (by the light of my head torch) and didn’t see a single drip – so we could go to bed confident that we would not wake up at the bottom  of the canal.

The prop shaft with the stern gland. The greasing screw is top centre on the gland.

Mooring at Church Lawton 1-8-19

Map at 1-8-19

TODAY: 7:00 HOURS. 5.2 MILES. 7 LOCKS. 0 BRIDGE.

VOYAGE: 69:10 HOURS. 81.8 MILES. 62 LOCKS. 8 BRIDGES

Up in the clouds

Tuesday 30^th July

Immediately ahead of us today was the Bosley Flight, twelve locks taking us back down 110 feet towards the Trent and Mersey canal. Compared with Marple, where sixteen locks raise the canal 208 feet, this isn’t quite as steep, but it is still a fairly challenging bit of work.

Looking down Bosley Flight from the top

Before we got there we had to traverse a lift bridge (electrically operated, no hand-cranking like the Peak Forest) and then before the locks we stopped at a water point to refill. I have never seen a water point that filled so fast, we did ¾ of the tank in about 15 minutes, many places that would have been half an hour and more.

After that we started on the locks. I had been nervous all the time we were filling in case someone came past us, because following someone through a set of locks makes things very much slower and harder – you have to fill each one again before you can go in. But nobody had appeared. However, as I cycled forward to the first lock, having left Loulie to bring the boat up, I saw another narrowboat emerging from a side arm parallel to the lock, and facing down hill. However when I asked him if he was going down the flight he said no, he was just winding – and proceeded to turn very neatly in a space I would not have thought feasible.

So that meant we were at the front of the queue going down, and to make things even better there was a boat coming up Lock 1 (the top lock) so all the locks behind ought to be full and set for us. There was a vlockie helping them, and apparently he had worked all the way up with them, so I was hopeful. However when we had put Loulie through the lock he said goodbye, so maybe his shift was ending.

Bosley Flight

I was on the bike, cycling forward to get each lock ready to work Loulie through. The locks are all in very good repair, the gates are tight and all the sluices work well. However the design is poor for a single person operating the locks, because there are two top gates and two sluices, one each side, but the only bridge is at the bottom of the lock, beyond the lower gates. So in order to open the top gates you have to open one, then walk all the way down the lock, across the bridge and up the other side. When the boat comes in you then close one gate, climb over the boat to the other side, and close that gate. By contrast at Marple there is just one top gate, with the handle on the towpath side, and the sluice winding mechanisms are also both on that side – so you never need to cross the lock at all.

All this was just grit, thinking that it could have been a little easier, but we proceeded smoothly down the locks, with Bosley Cloud looming in the distance ahead. However after we had done six of the twelve, the Cloud disappeared behind the clouds, thick black rainclouds, and we were suddenly in torrential rain, with occasional high-level summer thunder. I was reminded of Ginger Rogers’ pointing out that she did everything the Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. So doing the second six locks was just like doing the first six, but in pouring rain and heavy wet weather gear.

When we came out of the bottom lock the rain had abated somewhat, and we moored just below the lock point and had a slightly belated lunch. We debated whether we might stay there for the night, as the forecast was for more rain, but the constant traffic and bustle at the lock would have disturbed the dogs incessantly. So we unmoored, and carried on for just a mile or so. We tried a couple of possible spots, but they had wide ledges to keep us away from the bank. Eventually we found a spot, very remote, and settled down to wash and dry some of the wet clothes and dog beds that we have accumulated.

Map at 30-7-19

TODAY: 5 HOURS. 4.3 MILES. 12 LOCKS. 1 BRIDGE.

VOYAGE: 54.65 HOURS. 71.3 MILES. 55 LOCKS. 8 BRIDGES

Alpaca mac if you do

Monday 29^th July

We heard the last of the rain on the roof this morning, but by the time we were up it had stopped, and during the morning it developed into a very nice day, hot and sunny but not oppressively so, as it was on Thursday. We have had the full gamut of English summer weather in the past few days, from Saharan heatwave to Indian monsoon.

After breakfast Loulie took the dogs (minus Ruby) off for a good walk, while I followed to pick them up when they were ready. They got a good way before I reached them, a couple of miles, and along the way Minnie suddenly stopped and stared into a field. She had found some very strange creatures, though oddly the other four dogs didn’t seem interested in the slightest. And as the photos confirm, these are indeed the legendary Alpacas of Higher Poynton.

Alpacas looking at Minnie

We had some good fortune, because I had been worried about the collapsed state of much of the bank, and how I would get in close to pick the girls up. However I was at a bit of good towpath at a marina when I saw two boats coming the other way at a bridge, and I reversed (very nicely!) over to the side to let them past. Just at that moment the dogs came back through the bridge, followed by Loulie, and they were able to board in style. We pushed on, at one point getting a view of White Nancy. This is a folly/viewpoint built at the top of Kerridge Hill, overlooking Bollington, to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo.

White Nancy, just visible at the left of the summit ahead

This was the day we were losing our guest, Blossom, and we arranged to meet Shirley in Bollington at noon. Bollington is a nice little town, but built on very steep land around and above the river Dean. The canal cuts across the valley on a high aqueduct, so the main road and most of the town is 150 feet below. However two huge mills, Clarence and Adelphi, were built right next to the canal, and we moored next to Clarence, which is in very good shape and home to lots of businesses and a café and wine bar. It is nice to see one of these old buildings being maintained well – usually they are pretty scruffy, maybe home to a few lock-up style businesses or used for rough storage.

Clarence Mill at Bollington, at the north end of town

Shirley arrived and had a coffee, while I went down into the town to do some shopping. It was very easy scooting down on the bike, but coming back loaded it was a question of using the bike as a cargo carrier and pushing it up the hills. We said farewell to Blossom, and “Hello!” to our heavy-duty wet weather gear, which Jonjo had dropped with Shirley, we having forgotten to bring it with us. This would have been very useful on Sunday, but there is no doubt we will need it again, looking at the forecast for next week.

Adelphi Mill at the south end of Bollington

Teggs Nose

After Bollington we went through Macclesfield, or at least the eastern outskirts, the canal doesn’t really go near the town centre. There is an impressive warehouse and mill, which used to belong to Hovis.

Old Hovis Warehouse at Macclesfield

We were now back out in the country, and looking for somewhere to stop. As always on a strange canal you have the dilemma – do we settle for an OK mooring here, or travel forward looking for a better spot? – the point being that it is impossible in practice to go back once you have passed somewhere. We looked at a couple of places but didn’t fancy them, then soon after working a swing bridge (no gravel-related problems this time) we found a good place, on shuttering and well away from anyone else, so we put in the mooring clips and settled down for the night.

Moorings at Lyme Green

Map at 29-7-19

TODAY: 6 HOURS. 9.7 MILES. 0 LOCKS. 1 BRIDGE.

VOYAGE: 49.65 HOURS. 67 MILES. 43 LOCKS. 7 BRIDGES

You shall not pass

Sunday 28th July

It rained very hard all night, loud enough on the roof to wake us several times, and it was forecast to carry on all day. We got ourselves organised and we were just feeding the dogs when a walker passing by mentioned that a boater around the corner was having trouble with the swing bridge, he couldn’t open it. As we were going to have to go that way, I walked down the towpath to see what was up.

I found a man and his wife, on the narrowboat Northgate. The bridge was jammed because the rain had washed a whole lot of gravel and small stones down the lane, and into the curved groove between the bridge body and the stone rim. This meant that we could not rotate the bridge, it wouldn’t budge. The man had already started to scrape and lever the stones out, using a screwdriver, but the gap was much deeper than the length of the screwdriver, and many of the stones seemed stuck fast anyway.

I went back to our boat to see if I could find anything longer, but the only item I found, a brush handle, was too wide to go into the slot. At that point I called CRT, who said someone would be along, and we went back to scraping.

The offending bridge (after fixing)

Over time we were joined by other boaters, and the CRT people came. They had a couple of long thin metal fence poles, the sort that have a loop at one end to take cord or wire, and we started prodding and scraping with them – they were at least long enough, but it was still tedious work. They went off to see if they could find a pressure hose, and our small but growing team continued – one guy found a bucket and start to use that to wash away the smaller stuff, which allowed the rest of us to see and move the bigger bits more easily. After about three hours chipping away like the Seven Dwarves we had got out enough stones to allow us to shift the thing, and we were on our way. In the end it was fun in an odd sense, like the challenges you get on a management training course – "with this limited choice of tools your team has to achieve the following objectives".

The start of the Macc

The rain hadn’t been too bad, but it picked up as we sailed back to Marple, and stopped to replenish our water. We only did that yesterday, but Loulie had done several loads of washing in the meantime. She got the machine, a little single tub, before this trip, so that we can be self-sustaining on longer journeys. She has to intervene manually more often than she does at home, but it works well, though it does use up a lot of our water.

Goyt Mill in Marple

Navigating in the pouring rain

When the water had been refilled we set off down the Macclesfield Canal, past a really large old building, Goyt Mill, the biggest we have seen since Manchester. It was really torrential now, and we were looking for a place to stop, but this is a busy canal with a lot of people moored in the good spots, and quite a bit of the towpath wall is collapsing, so you cannot moor. We went about four miles, through High Lane, and then in Higher Poynton we found a very nice mooring, with no-one close and shuttering to attach the mooring pins to. The only downside is that we have very poor internet signal, so I am writing this up offline to be posted when we reach civilisation.

Map at 28-7-19

TODAY: 4.75 HOURS. 6.9 MILES. 0 LOCKS. 2 BRIDGEs.

VOYAGE: 43.65 HOURS. 57.3 MILES. 43 LOCKS. 6 BRIDGES

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.