The end of the Bridgewater meant that we moved onto the Rochdale Canal, and the difference was immediately obvious. We had to climb a series of locks, all very badly maintained and with minimal conveniences - only one bridge per lock, which means a lot of extra walking for the crew. We were going up through the very centre of the city, past Deansgate and Oxford Road - one lock was literally under a building near the Palace Theatre. Parts of the towpath have been closed, apparently to stop drunks falling in, and everywhere is scattered with the detritus of inner city night life.
On walking up to the sixth lock I discovered a boat ahead of us grounded in the exit - the pound was too low, and as we waited it emptied entirely. It wasn't clear why this was happening - in the end we assumed a combination of poorly fitting lock gates, and low water flow due to minimal traffic. They had called CRT but they never turned up, and in the end we went to the next lock and opened all the paddles to flush water through. This involved climbing over walls, as that lock is not normally accessible from the road. This allowed their boat to creep through, and then it was our turn. We were concerned we might ground half way out of the lock and tip backwards, so we edged forward very carefully until we were out and could close the gates behind us, to retain water in the pound.
There still wasn't enough water and I was stuck, so Loulie went forward, climbed down from the road, and opened all the sluices and the lower lock gates. We were reminded how shallow a canal really is - the water would rise a few inches and I was able to push forward a few yards, then I would stick again. All this was taking place along Canal Street in the centre of Manchester, with hundreds of drinkers from the bars watching over the walls down into the canal. Eventually we scraped into the next lock, which filled slowly, and we were off again. The next few locks were through very dodgy country, with odd characters lurking down the tunnels and hiding from sight. At last we reached Piccadilly Basin and turned off the Rochdale Canal onto the Ashton.
To be honest, this was not a huge improvement on the Rochdale. The major differences were that the locks were single width, and had anti-vandal locks on all the paddles. We have a key but this just adds extra grit to the process - eight extra fiddly processes per lock. Having wasted about three hours scraping through the empty pound at Canal Street we were not going to get to our target tonight, so now we were just looking for anywhere it was possible to moor safely. We passed the Etihad stadium (Man City) and the National Velodrome before finding a bit of bank we could moor to above the eighth lock. There was a factory opposite and a fence behind the towpath, but there was enough grass to hammer in the mooring pins and, at half past eight, that was enough. We fed and watered the dogs, fed and watered ourselves, and went to bed.
