Launch day for Narrowboat Kingley Vale

We were up early this morning and on the road to Braidbar, for our new boat, Kingley Vale, to be put into the water.  It was quite a day!  There’s a full report over on the Kingley Vale blog, so just click the link to see it.

Tomorrow, we head out for a little trip.

Getting things done

Today has been a getting stuff done type of day.  This morning Adrian went off to the local laundrette to do some washing.  We have a washing machine on board, but without easy access to water in this marina to top up the tank, we thought land-based facilities would be a better option.  They have dryers too, which is a plus.

While the washing was on, Adrian took the car over the road to a hand car wash place.  Meanwhile, I did a few boat jobs back on board.

This afternoon we have been shopping, and a hotel boat came into the marina, presumably for a change of passengers.

We’ve also made a few decisions about what to do for the next few weeks while the Macc is still shut.  We were always planning to head out for a few trips, using Festival Park as a base.  But without water or electricity at the pontoons, it doesn’t really seem worth it.  So we have found somewhere else to park the car, and will be heading out on Wednesday. Tomorrow is a big day, as Kingley Vale goes in the water, so we’ll be up at Braidbar for that.

Biddulph Grange

The clear sunny days have finally come to an end.  But although there was a shower at about the time we were getting up, and another mid morning, it’s been a much better day than forecast.  We thought that with access to the car we should go somewhere we needed to drive to, so chose the National Trust garden, Biddulph Grange, which is between Stoke and Congleton.  It’s a spectacular place — a series of small gardens with linking paths, and you never know quite what’s round the corner.  The house is privately owned apartments.

Nothing is quite what it seems.  Cheshire Cottage is actually a maze of tunnels, one of which leads to the Egyptian garden.

The highlight is undoubtedly the Chinese Garden, which is hidden right in the middle of the scheme.

There is also the most extensive stumpery you’re ever likely to see.

At the end of one long walkway, is the largest stone urn in the UK.

After a good explore, we had lunch in the cafe.  We thought we’d come a different way back, so head up the hill towards Mow Cop.  There was a fantastic viewpoint from where you could see Manchester in one direction and Beeston Castle in the other.  Then we went down to Scholar Green and had a walk along the Macclesfield Canal, by the Ramsdell Hall Railings.  The levels look fine, now they’ve found a way to bring water past the breach site.  Finally after the disappointment of not getting a Snugbury’s ice cream at Nantwich yesterday, we found they have a place near Congleton, so we went and had one there instead.

Station cafe

This morning we drove over to Chester to see my dad, and take him out for lunch.  We went to the Delamere Station House, which is actually in the Delamere Station building.  It must be one of the few stations were more people go for the cafe than the trains! There’s one train an hour in each direction, to Chester and Manchester Piccadilly.

As we drove back to Stoke, we made a brief stop at Snugbury’s ice cream — brief because the queue was so long we decided we wouldn’t even bother parking the car.

Car shuffle and podcast launch

Adrian went to get the car today, so we both walked down the canal to Stoke Station, where he had a train booked to Milton Keynes.

Then it was an Uber to the marina, returning the entry cards to Val the owner, who was there so he was able to have a nice chat, and driving back to Stoke.

Meanwhile I was doing various things on the boat, including launching my new retirement project, a canal-based podcast called The Water Road.  The first episode is from the start of our trip, as we went through Stoke Bruerne.  It’s available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and several of the smaller platforms.  Click whichever one you prefer, and please have a listen.

Once Adrian was back with the car, we went food shopping.  It’s been another sunny day at the marina.  A few hire boaters returned this morning, but I didn’t notice any going out.  There will probably be more turnover tomorrow.

Meanwhile an email from our friend Paul Balmer tells me that his boat, Waterway Routes, is now for sale through ABNB.  Details are here.  It’s sad that Paul and Christine have decided they can no longer keep boating, but thankfully Paul will still be producing his very useful maps and his DVDs.

Heading north: Day 11

The moorings at Westport Lake are lovely.  We could hear an owl hooting last night, and there was more bright sunshine this morning.  With very little distance to do today, we had a relaxed start.  Our plan was to go and turn around before Harecastle tunnel, but the winding hole there is rather short — the Waterway Routes map says 60ft, and as we are 58.5ft that’s tight!  So we thought we’d better go in decent time, just in case we needed to go through the tunnel, turn round, and come back again.  We did the mile or so up to the tunnel, to find a queue of four boats, some of which we knew had been there overnight, as we’d seen them yesterday.  The boats meant there was even less room for turning, but we got round, with Adrian giving us a pull with the bow rope.

We returned to the lake and moored in the same spot, just facing the other way.  We went for a walk round the lake, and explored the nature reserves on the far side.  The cafe, which is in a building on stilts, has apparently recently re-opened.

We had lunch on board, then set off for Festival Park Marina, where were book in for a month as were unable to get to Higher Poynton because of the hole in the Macclesfield Canal.  Just along from Westport Lake is the best-named cement firm we’ve ever seen: Readymicks.

At Longport Wharf was a boat painted in dazzle camouflage; it’s called 50 Shades.

We arrived at Festival Park and moored outside, while Adrian went to the office to be told where our space would be.  It’s a funny place, with the only water points a long way from the pontoons, and not enough electricity points for us to have one.  But the price reflects that, with it being cheaper than many car parks.  We took the opportunity to fill the water tank, though, before we came in.  Then we reversed off the service point and I swung the boat around while Adrian wound up the bridge over the entrance.

Entry to our berth was managed without a fuss, but tying up is a bit tricky because the pontoons are only half length.  Anyway, we have few options at the moment, and the plan is to not spend a great deal of time actually in the marina.

4 miles, 0 locks.  (119 miles, 60 locks)

Heading north: Day 10

We were up early this morning, as we had an appointment.  Tim Tyler, who’s building the shell of our new boat, Kingley Vale, had contacted us to say they’d be starting to paint it with primer this afternoon, so if we wanted to see it in bare metal, this morning would be the day to do it.  So it was about 6.30 when I got the boat ready to set off.  It was very cold and frosty, there was mist rising off the water, and the sun was showing promise.

Adrian had got up a bit after me, but came out to help with Trentham Lock, which was just round the corner.  It’s a pretty deep one.

We travelled through Hem Heath as dogs were taken for morning walks, joggers were out, and people were going to work.  Bridge 108, near the football stadium, has seen better days.

Soon the incinerator comes into view.  It’s a familiar sight not only from the canal, but from the A500 through Stoke.

Some things always need their photo taking, and the sign of eclectic offerings at Dolphin boat yard is one of them

Adrian said he’d work Stoke Locks, on the basis it was early, they’d probably all have drained empty so would be ready for us, and there would be no-one else around.  The first one was empty, but all the others weren’t, and a boat was coming down the middle one.  The second lock is surrounded by railways.

Below the penultimate lock is the chimney of the Etruscan Bone Mill.

The top lock is by far the deepest.

We carried on past lots of new warehouse buildings on the site of the old steel works, and past Middleport Pottery.  We moored up at Westport Lake, our boating for the day done by 10.15!  Tim Tyler came and picked us up from the car park, and took us back to his workshop, where we could have a good look at the new shell.  It made us both a bit emotional!  It looks really good, with lots of details, and we really like our combination of portholes and side doors.  There’s much more on the visit in the latest post over on the Kingley Vale blog.

We decided to walk back to the boat, and Tim showed us a short cut for the first part of the trip, and then we went under the A500 and over the railway line.  This afternoon we’ve been catching up with various things, and enjoying the sunshine.

7 miles, 6 locks.  (115 miles, 60 locks)

Heading north: Day 9

There was a very heavy frost when we woke up this morning.  As we’d approached got the boat ready to go, a balloon drifted over.

At 8am we moved the short distance to the water point at the junction, and did the usual filling and washing machine combination.  About half an hour later, we set off for Hoo Mill Lock, which was due to re-open at 9.  As we approached, a boat was coming out.

They are rebuilding the by-wash at the lock — and a notice came through yesterday of a similar problem at the next lock, Weston, with the by-wash being blocked.  This meant the pound between the two was very short of water.  Progress was rather slow, because of the shallowness, and moored boats were grounded.  It was much better above Weston Lock.  Bridge 82 always gets its photo taken — this side anyway; the other side is much plainer.

Sandon Lock was empty waiting for us, and above Rowington, the share boat which Catherine and Nigel part own was waiting to come down.  We carried on to Aston Marina, where we went in for diesel at the very good price of 92.4p for domestic.  Then it was back out onto the cut and along to Aston Lock.  Above the lock was a Stone hire boat, pretty much across the canal, apparently unable to get into the lock.  Adrian went to lend a hand, firstly by pulling the bow round, and then telling the steerer which way to turn the tiller.  He didn’t, though, possibly because he was a bit hard of hearing, so eventually Adrian got on board, walked along the gunwales, and steered the boat into the lock.  It all took ages.

We had lunch on the move between Aston Lock and the bottom of the Stone flight, then headed up.  The pub where we had our post-Christmas family get together in January looked busy.

There was a slight delay getting to the third lock as one of the permanent moorers was reversing to the water point, and got a little bit aground.  We got there soon enough though.

Above that lock the water was very low again, but it was better above the top lock, which has a novel solution for a replacement balance beam — it appears to be made of scaffolding planks.  Roger Fuller’s yard is also in this pound.

The Meaford flight has also had problems the past couple of days.  A boat coming down told us CRT had been fixing a hole in the canal bed between the top two locks, but the pound was now full again.  The levels were down all through the flight though.

We carried on for an hour after the locks, and moored at Barlaston, not far from the Wedgwood visitor centre, in a very sunny and warm spot.

14 miles, 12 locks.  (108 miles, 54 locks)

Heading north: Day 8

I had a boat test to do this morning just back at Kings Bromley Wharf, so we had a pretty relaxed start to the day.  Even though I had just a few minutes walk up the towpath and Andy the photographer had driven a couple of hours up the M40 and M42, we both arrived at the same time.  We were pretty efficient, and I was back at our boat and setting off at about 11.45.  We went through Handsacre and then past the Armitage Shanks factory.

There were toilets and basins being loaded onto Lorrie’s, ready for new bathrooms.  At Plum Pudding, where there’s a very narrow section, a boat was just starting to go through.  We assumed they had sent crew ahead to check the way was clear, so we followed them.  The cutting is only one boat wide, and used to be a tunnel, until the roof was taken off.

The boat ahead had passed our overnight mooring a long time before we set off, and he continued to go quite slowly until he moored up at Rugeley.  We also stopped a little further along the moorings, and made a visit to the very convenient Tesco, to stock up for the next few days.  With that done we continued north, crossing the Trent on an aqueduct just out of town.  The bird in flight was caught completely by accident.

The next section is quite pretty, sometimes in the open valley, sometimes in woods.  At Colwich Lock is one of my favourites because it’s so attractive.  As we arrived, a boat was just leaving which was handy.

In the peak season, the section up to Haywood Lock is full of boats, there weren’t many today, a we thought we’d take a chance on there being a mooring above the lock, near the junction.  As we came up the lock it looked pretty full, so we stopped straight away; but walking round the corner we found better spaces, so went and moved.

As we’d approached the lock, a boater coming the other way had told us that Hoo Mill Lock, the one after Haywood, had been due to re-open at 3pm but didn’t, and was now shut for five weeks.  This would have put our plans into further disarray.  But checking the stoppages, it seems there is a problem which means the lock is closed between 3pm and 9am, but passage is available during the day.  This was confirmed by other people moored at the junction.  We’ll find out for definite tomorrow.

10 miles, 2 locks.  (94 miles, 42 locks)

Heading north: Day 7

Another sunny day.  We had scrambled eggs for breakfast as it was Sunday, and set off about 9.15.  Just around the corner was Huddlesford Junction, where a boat club use the remains of the Lichfield Canal as moorings.

Parts of this canal are very pretty, with nice little bridges and reeds.

Parts of it, at Streethay, run right next to the A38, which isn’t so nice.  Before long we were entering Fradley, where lots of new houses are still going up on the old airfield.  We found a space before the junction and tied up.  We went for a walk down the locks, dropping off our rubbish on the way.  There were loads of people out and about enjoying the weather and the canal.  The junction was looking particularly pretty, and I think the Swan pub has had a repaint.

We walked up the locks too, and then went for an early lunch at the Canalside cafe at the holiday park, where the toasted sandwiches were pretty good.  Returning to the boat, we set off again, with Adrian walking back to swing the little bridges out of the way and walk up to the locks.

There was a volunteer at Middle Lock, so he worked that one and sent Adrian up to get Shadehouse Lock ready.  Shadehouse is one that has a bridge over the tail.

A little further on is Wood End Lock, and as we arrived someone on the towpath said hello to me.  It was a boat builder I’m visiting tomorrow for a magazine boat test; I hadn’t recognised him at first, out of context.  At the lock, the new bottom gates both swung open, but some people watching came and held them closed.  We moored just along from Kings Bromley Marina, because of my boat test tomorrow morning.  It was only about 2pm, but we have a former colleague of Adrian’s visiting as he lives nearby, and Helen and Andy are coming round this evening.

7 miles, 3 locks.  (84 miles, 40 locks)