We had a very good meal last night in the Spread Eagle pub in Lymm, with Susan and Peter Mason. Food and company both excellent. This morning we were off at about 8am, heading back south along the Bridgewater Canal. We paused at Thorn Marine in Stockton Heath to buy some logs, in case we relent and light the fire one evening. Once past Moore, the views open up. Things look different going the opposite way. This time there were better views of the Norton Water Tower in Runcorn, the arch of the Runcorn bridge, and the new Mersey Gateway bridge (although I seem to have got only two of the three towers).
We'd made much better progress than expected, so had to wait about 35 minutes for Preston Brook Tunnel, which can only be entered on between 30 and 40 minutes past the hour going south. After the tunnel is the stop lock, with hardly any noticeable rise.
The weather had cheered up nicely, and it was really quite warm by the time we had lunch on the move.
We had another short pause at Saltersford Tunnel, until we could go through at 1.30. As we were ahead of where we expected to be, Adrian went online to make bookings for the Anderton Boat Lift down to the River Weaver. We had to wait for a couple of boats to come through Barnton Tunnel, which isn't time controlled as you can see the other end -- although not really until you're virtually in there.
We got to Anderton at 2.15, which was our booked time, but we hadn't taken into account that you're supposed to be there half an hour before -- so we moved to the next slot at 3.45. It meant a sit in the sunshine with an ice cream from the gift shop! Soon, though, we were making our way onto the lift and then into the caisson.
The gate dropped behind us to seal the caisson, then ever so smoothly we started to be lowered down. As we went down, the other caisson came up, also with just one boat in it. Eventually we were at the bottom and they were at the top.
Last time we came onto the Weaver we were on a mission. We'd had to rearrange our transit of the Manchester Ship Canal from Western Marsh Lock to Ellesmere Port because of a bad weather forecast, so we turn right and got to Western Marsh in about three hours, and were then straight on the Ship Canal. This time we turned left towards Northwich.
Very shortly afterwards it began to rain, so photos of Northwich will have to wait until we come back tomorrow. I did take one of one of the swing bridges; don't let the blue sky behind fool you, it was still raining.
We got as far as Hunt's Locks, where the Lock Keeper said we didn't have time to get to the next lock, Vale Royal, and anyway there were loads of boats down there because of a festival at Winsford. So we've stopped on the moorings below the lock, and will do the rest of the upstream section tomorrow.
19 miles, 1 lock. (246 miles, 133 locks)
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