It's Over

Friday 18^th September 2020 

The mooring below Big Lock proved very successful. It was nice and quiet – just a few dog walkers early on, but less traffic than a normal towpath mooring. And of course there was nice open green space close by in both directions. The other benefit was that with the Middlewich locks all behind us there was no pressure to get moving early, so we took our time.

In the end we got moving about ten. As we were approaching Croxton Aqueduct I saw a boat coming the other way towards us. This aqueduct is very narrow, just a few inches either side of a narrowboat, so I swerved over to the left to let them past. As they came by I recognised them – the Tiller People, regular vloggers based at the Overwater Marina on the Shroppie.

Tired crew on the final leg

Trent and Mersey jungle north of Middlewich

Bridge 213 - last one on the T&M

After that we were following a well-trodden path back through the wilds north of Middlewich, then through Wincham and Marston, past Marbury and Anderton, then through the tunnels. Loulie took the dogs off for a walk after Barnton, and we got back to the marina at about five, and our adventure was over.

It has been a great trip, with a strange hiatus in the middle. We have reached two landmark points on the network – Shardlow and Birmingham - as well as a number of other memorable spots; the Trent crossroads, Fradley and Fazeley Junctions, Dudley Museum and the tunnels, and the Wolverhampton flight. Given the strange year and the constraints of lockdown it’s good that we have managed to get away for a significant length of time. We have not had as many nights on board as we had planned, but something is better than nothing.

TODAY: 7:00 HOURS. 19 MILES. 1 LOCK.

Voyage: 94:25 HOURS. 176.7 MILES. 138 LOCKS.

Getting back on the grid

 Thursday 17^th September 2020

We needed to find a mooring with good mobile signal for the evening, because I had a Parish Council meeting to attend. However we needed to make a reasonable mileage, so that we would be in position to get home tomorrow (Friday). The signal is fairly poor all the way along the Middlewich Branch, until you reach the eponymous town itself, but we were unsure how slow we would find things through the locks. We didn’t make an early start – I went down into town to get a plant pot from M&S, because Loulie wanted to give it to a lady at NNC who has been very helpful to us over the years. In the end it was about 10 when we set off. 

These are very familiar waters to us by now, and we headed up to Barbridge Junction, then along the Branch. After our worries about queues at the locks, in the event we went straight into the first three; at Cholmondeston a man from the marina was working the lock as people passed through, and at the other two we got lucky by arriving just as boats were coming out, going the other way. Loulie got off with the dogs for a good walk around the middle of the Branch – it is very rural and quiet, with very few busy roads or other hazards in the way of dog walking. 

As we left Stanthorne lock another boat pulled out from the bank ahead of us, and we followed them down through Middlewich, with things becoming much slower. There was another boat waiting at Wardle lock, and others coming up, then on the triple flight we again encountered slow boaters who generally held things up.

Once down those locks we moored near the centre of town, so I could get on the bike and go to Morrisons for food. We then debated whether to go on down Big Lock, and I went ahead for a recce. It looked as though there was space in a spot we have noticed before, on the offside just below Big Lock, so we carried on and moored there. Although it is on the off side it is a CRT public mooring, beside some open green space, and we were able to squeeze on the end. It was great for walking the dogs, and since we were still inside the town boundaries the signal was great for my meeting.

 

TODAY: 7:00 HOURS. 14 MILES. 8 LOCKS.

Voyage: 87:25 HOURS. 157.7 MILES. 137 LOCKS.

Long Day's Journey into Night

 Monday 24^th August 2020

Today was the start of our first long trip since my retirement, taking advantage of the fact that we don’t have to get out and back within whatever holiday I had booked. Ironically we are only planning a three week trip, because Loulie needs to get back to base to help with a horse show run by Wilmslow Riding Club. We decided that our first objective would be to go right down the Trent and Mersey to the other end, at Shardlow, and have a look at the marina there – Loulie is thinking of organising something there for her birthday next June. That won’t take up the three weeks, so we will probably divert down the Coventry Canal at Fradley Junction on our way back, and go through the centre of Birmingham. I had spent some time gathering advice about the best way to do this, preferred moorings and so on, but I was still a little nervous, both about whether there would be space to moor in the centre, and about the rough areas.

Moored at Keckwick ready to load

We were very keen to get as far as possible today, because we had made a booking to eat at the Barchetta in Wheelock tomorrow evening. Normally Wheelock in two days would be very easy, but there were all sorts of severe storm warnings for Tuesday afternoon, so we wanted to be in position to have a short trip in the morning, and be moored up and snug by lunchtime. That meant making hay today. I had brought Eileen up to Keckwick yesterday, so we could load and go, but we had builders starting work at home, so we had to stay around for long enough to make sure they were sorted out.

Under way

In the end we got under way just before noon, and up to Preston Brook tunnel for the 12:30 passage. Sadly we found there were three boats ahead of us, which meant we were queuing to get through the stop lock. We pressed on and, though it was quite tight, we were at Saltersford to go through at 14:30. We cruised on past Anderton and Marbury, but as we reached the Wincham bend we came up behind two hire boats from Anderton. They were going very slowly indeed, occasionally making as if to pull into the bank but then changing their minds, and all in all we lost a lot of time before they eventually both stopped outside the Broken Cross pub.

We might have stopped short of Middlewich, but that would have left us with a lot to do and a lot of locks to work in the storm, so we decided to press on. We went up through Big Lock, the triple and then King's Lock, and headed out of town, now looking for somewhere we could sensibly moor as darkness was beginning to close in. The problem is that the canal runs right alongside a very busy main road for several miles (and several locks), and we decided that it would be impossible to sleep with the lorries rumbling past. Eventually we found a spot just below the top lock at Booth Lane – in fact we were moored on bollards at the end of the lock landing. It wasn’t a terribly salubrious spot – there was a dilapidated factory building opposite, and an apparently abandoned boat moored just behind us. But it was nearly dark by now, we were travelling with our headlights on, so we tied up and made the best of it.

TODAY: 9:25 HOURS. 22.6 MILES. 9 LOCKS.

Voyage: 9:25 HOURS. 22.6 MILES. 9 LOCKS.

 

 

Running in the rain

 

Tuesday 7^th July 2020

While we were confined to our houses in May and June we had a long stretch of beautiful hot dry weather. Now we have a chance to get out and enjoy ourselves, the weather naturally has betrayed us. It rained hard almost all day, as we made our way through the locks of Middlewich.

First though we went forward a few miles to Clive Green, a little short of Stanthorne lock, where we moored. Loulie took the dogs for a good walk, while I went for a run along the towpath, all the way past Wardle lock, into the centre of Middlewich and then back out again. Since last year, when I was using my phone to measure runs, I have acquired a Garmin watch, much less obtrusive, which allows me to check exactly how far I have run. I never find that I do a good run when we are on the boat – I think standing steering for many hours in a day leaves me a bit stiff in my legs.

After that we got moving again, and went through the Middlewich locks, a very familiar routine for us. First Stanthorne and Wardle on the brach, and then on the main line of the Trent and Mersey there are the three closely spaced locks in the centre of Middlewich. We moored up after them, and I went up to Morrisons to get provisions, solid and liquid.

We had lunch and then did Big Lock, the final one for the day. I had some hope that we might be able to moor at Bramble Cuttings, if things were still quiet, but quite the opposite – there were four boats moored there, and we would not have been able to find space, even if we wanted to share the area.

We thought about mooring just down from Bramble Cuttings, where we have stopped in the past, but the dense tree cover made mobile reception poor, and in any case the towpath is very overgrown now, and there were few places where we could even have found a place to stop. So we pressed on to another of our favourite spots, the wides at Bostock Green, where we moored quite late, after half seven.

Again, although the signal had seemed good when we were mooring, Loulie struggled to do her Wilmslow work, and we decided that rather than making a slow trip home as planned, we would just push on tomorrow and get back to base.

One innovation I tried out this evening was a hobby tray or work station, a small mdf construction with a cutting mat, and shelves for paints, brushes and a water jar. If as we hope we are going to be going for longer voyages, we need to find a way to live more normal lives - we can't treat it as an infinite holiday, and just eat and drink all night. It worked well, though I think I will try to source a stronger light to clip to the side of the tray.

TODAY: 6:00 HOURS. 11.2 MILES. 6 LOCKS.

Voyage: 8:50 HOURS. 17.7 MILES. 8 LOCKS.

Winter Window 2019

Monday 30^th December

Sunset at the marina before we set off

Cormorant at the marina

Last year, in order to get Eileen to the Navigation Narrowboat Company in Nantwich we were forced to take her over during a brief window of time between the opening of the Middlewich breach a few days before Christmas, and the closing of the canals in several places on the 2^nd January. Although we had no choice, in the event we enjoyed it so much, especially New Year’s Eve on board, that we decided to do the same again. We have some work planned on her, so at some point we needed to get her over to Nantwich. There is no breach this time, of course, and there seem to be far fewer stoppages generally on our route, so there was no real constraint on when we moved her. Even so we decided to plan the trip so we were on board on New Year’s Eve, and furthermore well out in the country so that the dogs wouldn’t be disturbed by fireworks.

Winter sunshine on the Trent and Mersey

Moored at Bartington

As we were under no time pressure we decided to take it easy on the first day. I brought Eileen up to Keckwick and we loaded up, then set off at about two, so we could get through the tunnel at two thirty. That meant that we had about an hour of daylight on the other side, and we cruised just past Bartington before mooring at a nice spot on clips. On the way we passed a boat with a nice paint job, called Dark Side of the Moon – we would be encountering her again on the journey.

  

TODAY: 2:30 HOURS. 7.9 MILES. 1 LOCK.

Tuesday 31^st December

We made a leisurely start and reached the Saltersford tunnel for 11:30. However we discovered that the circuit for the pump on the toilet was not working, presumably a fuse gone. Loulie found a bag of spare fuses behind the electrical panel, but we still did not know where the actual fuses were. Eventually we figured out that they could be found by removing the illuminated plastic strips on the front of the panel, and once we had found them it was the work of a moment to replace the correct fuse, and all was working again.

The crew below decks

In the pool before Barnton Tunnel

Emerging from the south end of Barnton Tunnel

We did this repair in the pool between the Saltersford and Barnton tunnels, and then we pressed on again to Anderton. Here we stopped on the holding moorings for the boat lift – as this is closed for the winter we were confident that no-one would be bothered if we tied up there for a couple of hours. We took the dogs (apart from Ruby) for a long walk down into the country park towards Marbury. It is great walking – mostly wooded with lots of slopes and little valleys with streams running down to the Witton Brook and eventually to the Weaver. It was a fine day, if cold, and we met a lot of other walkers, mostly with dogs. Ours had a whale of a time, and were nicely tired when we got back up to Eileen.

The chemical reaction that made Northwich famous

At this time of year the cruising day is strictly limited, and you need to be moored by four or soon after, so we pressed on through Marston and Wincham. Just beyond Wincham you pass right through the Lostock Works of Tata Chemicals, previously ICI (and Brunner Mond before that). Since our last visit they have erected a footbridge with decorations symbolic of the history of the works, including a chemical equation. This represents the decomposition of brine (salt and water) into chlorine, hydrogen and caustic soda - the basis of the chemical industry that made Northwich a significant industrial centre, beyond its ancient history as a salt town. 

At Broken Cross we passed a moored boat called Constanze, which I thought belonged to a couple who put out a vlog under the title Floating Our Boat, but we couldn’t see anyone around, and we couldn’t afford the time to stop to find out. Later I discovered that it was indeed theirs, but that they had been away on a trip down south and the boat was empty. We went on and reached the spot we had been aiming at, a mooring near Bostock Green, nearly opposite a wide area of shallows.

Moored by the wide at Bostock Green

We were only just around the corner from a new marina, Oakwood Marina, and we were a little concerned that they might have some sort of fireworks display. As it turned out they did, but it was quite short and didn’t really trouble the dogs at all. At home we could guarantee a variety of displays all around us, and going on for a long time – Mabel is particularly unhappy with loud noises, and Bridget and Ruby are not keen. So we were able to see the New Year in with a glass or two of bubbly, and five happy dogs.

TODAY: 3:00 HOURS. 10.0 MILES. 0 LOCKS.

VOYAGE: 5:30 HOURS. 17.9 MILES. 1 LOCK.

Wednesday 1^st January

Today we went through Middlewich and its locks. We started out around eleven, and cruised up just past Bramble Cuttings, where Loulie got off with the dogs and walked on most of the way to Middlewich, getting back aboard just before the aqueduct over the Dane. We did Big Lock and then stopped to take on water in the centre, and did a bit of shopping. We pulled away from the water point just before another boat, Dark Side of the Moon, appeared behind us, which meant that we found the locks in the three lock flight set in our favour, while they had to wait for them to fill after our passage.

Loulie had been navigating through the locks, and she stayed in place and carefully made the sharp right hand turn into the Wardle lock entrance, the start of the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union canal. For historic reasons this is actually the Wardle Canal, the shortest canal in the country at 154 feet long – it is just the one lock and the approach to it, and it was put there by the Trent and Mersey canal company to give them commercial control when the Branch was built to connect the T&M to the Shropshire.

When we turned in we found that there was already a boat there, Otter, preparing to go up. It looked like a man on his own, and I went forward to help him – in fact it turned out that his wife was also aboard, but because of a disability affecting her arms she could do very little of the work. I helped them go through, but as they came out they realised that they had something around their prop, and pulled over a little way further down.

I emptied the lock – there was no-one going down – and Loulie brought Eileen in. As we were working through, Dark Side of the Moon came under the bridge behind us, and the man came up to help us. We had a bit of a chat – I remarked on the paint job on his boat, which was based on the famous rainbow prism design from the Pink Floyd album cover. It turns out that this was done by Andy Russell, who painted Eileen, both originally and when we modified her.

Three Amigos on the poop

What are you doing with that thing?

The ship's company assembled at the stern

As we left the lock the people ahead of us in Otter were still struggling with the stuff wrapped around their prop, so we cruised on and were clear into the next lock a short distance away at Stanthorne. After going up that one we went on for a mile or so, then looked for a mooring. After rejecting one spot because of sheep in a field behind the towpath, we stopped on some shuttering just round the corner. It seemed a nice spot, but we did not realise that just opposite was a farm where, at four in the morning, someone would start reversing a vehicle over and over again – beep, beep, beep.

Moored at Wimboldsley - noisy farm just visible in the distance

TODAY: 4:35 HOURS. 7.8 MILES. 6 LOCKS.

VOYAGE: 10:05 HOURS. 25.7 MILES. 7 LOCKs.

Thursday 1^st January

This was the last day of our trip, and we wanted to get to Nantwich reasonably early, so that Jonjo could pick us up and run us home. We got away just before ten, and sailed comfortably along to the first lock, Minshull – I dropped Loulie and the dogs off for a good walk before we got there. As we were going up a very old-fashioned boat, towing a butty, pulled up at the top moorings ready to come down. The people on her had restored both boats and were cruising the network along with another vintage boat which was a little way behind them. When we got to the next lock, Cholmondeston, we saw behind us the Otter, the boat with the disabled lady, so we waited in order to help them through the lock. As we were doing so Dark Side of the Moon also arrived on her way up – the canals are pretty quiet at this time of year, so you tend to see the same people a lot.

After that it was an uneventful trip up to Barbridge at the junction of the Branch with the main line of the Shroppie, and then down past the end of the Llangollen canal. The four lock flight at the bottom of the Llangollen is being rebuilt over the winter – one chamber is particularly narrow and boats keep getting stuck in there. We could see all the scaffolding and other building work in progress as we went by.

On our arrival in Nantwich we turned and moored stern-first in the finger docks at the NNC. Jonjo arrived soon after, and we were able to load ourselves, the dogs and all the luggage we needed into his van. We will be leaving Eileen there until March now – we are not getting as many changes done this year, but we are getting her blacking renewed (that requires a drydock) and the engine will be taken out so that the engine compartment can be cleaned and renewed. We are already looking forward to bringing her home in the spring – we may come back the long way around.

TODAY: 4:30 HOURS. 10.2 MILES. 2 LOCKS.

VOYAGE: 14:35 HOURS. 35.9 MILES. 9 LOCKs.

Ants in our pants

Saturday 3^rd August

The end of our journey is definitely in sight now – we are on waters that we have cruised before, and by the end of the day we will be in very familiar territory (wrong word – aquatory?). We need to decide whether we want to get home on Sunday or Monday – if the latter then we will need to dawdle very deliberately. Probably it will be Sunday, though the weather may decide.

A Crowded Stern Deck

It was warm and sunny this morning, and we made a fairly leisurely start from Wheelock, getting under way at about 11:30 – Loulie went ahead with the dogs to give them a good walk before we reached Middlewich. Having reached the bottom of Heartbreak Hill, which is 26 locks with only small breaks between them, we had four more to do before reaching Kings Lock in Middlewich, but these are well spaced out over about four miles. Although we set out ahead of them, Just Joe came up fast behind us and I let them through – we later overtook them, moored above Kings Lock. At Ettiley Heath we passed a canalside property I always envy – a long stretch of bank and gardens full of shrubbery, with about four benches to sit and watch the passing traffic.

We met a few boats going the other way at the locks, just enough to help keep things going, including three old folk who were doing the Four Counties in a tiny boat less than 20 feet long. However once we got down into Middlewich, and the three locks in the centre, it became very busy, because Andersen Boats, just below those locks, were setting off a number of hirers on their first experience. This wasn’t too bad for us – we crossed a boat in each pound, and there was plenty of help at each lock – but there was quite a queue of boats at the bottom, waiting to go up.

Loulie doing Big Lock

We stopped at the water pint in the centre, below Andersen’s, and did some shopping, then carried on down Big Lock and out into the wilderness north of Middlewich. The Dane where we crossed the aqueduct was pretty swollen, but it was clear from the mud that it had been much higher flooding the fields – much of the rain which we experienced in the past week will have flowed into the Dane up in the hills. It started to pour with rain, and we tested an umbrella that Shirley had bought me as a present – with a very fetching design of Yorkshire Terriers in purple.

We didn’t go much further – Bramble cuttings had four boats, and our regular mooring just beyond it was occupied, so we went a little further and stopped at a remote spot. We moored up and fed the dogs, then we realised that there was a red ant nest right at the spot where we stepped off the stern. Ruby was stung on the foot, and they were swarming on Bridget’s leg. We moved a few yards, but there was another nest, so we went a couple of boatlengths and found an ant-free spot. However that left our bows sticking out too far for my liking, so I hauled us back a bit and we finally found a mooring which suited us all. The torrential rain returned, and the towpath is flooded, but we are safe and dry on board.

  

Map at 3-8-19

TODAY: 6:00 HOURS. 8.5 MILES. 9 LOCKS.

VOYAGE: 80:40 HOURS. 95.8 MILES. 91 LOCKS. 8 BRIDGES

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.