Northern Exposure: Day 15

This morning we walked the short distance up the road to Dunham Massey, the National Trust property, where the visitor centre and house are currently closed because of the Coronavirus but the park is open.  We were meeting my sister, her husband, and the kids.  Because of the social distancing measures, there was no hugging, which was odd, but we did have a good walk round the deer park and a good catch up.  My sister is a hospital consultant, so at the forefront of preparing for the virus onslaught.  They walked back to the boat with us, but didn’t come on board — which again felt very strange.  The whole park was very busy.

It was a little before 12 when we set off, and we were very soon into the built up area of Sale.  There are a lot of new houses which were under construction last time we came this way by the old Linotype works, but there’s not much of the original building left.

Through Sale, there’s a stretch where you can see for the best part of two miles because the canal is so straight.  The tow path was very busy, presumably because a lot of people have nothing else to do. There were whole families out for a walk or run or cycle.  One towpath walker shouted to me, ‘You’re in the safest place there!’  In contrast, each of the trams which went by (the track is right by the canal) had only two or three people on board.

The other noticeable thing was the canalside pubs being shut, after the government order last night.  Some were just deserted, but others had staff in doing things such as cleaning.  I wonder if some might be taking the opportunity to redecorate.

At Waters Meeting at Stretford we turned left onto the Leigh Arm, waters we haven’t travelled before.

We’ve been waiting for the annual maintenance on the Barton Swing Aqueduct to be completed.  The due date was yesterday, and we had to assume it was open again as the Bridgewater Canal Company hadn’t posted anything on its website or Facebook.  It was, so we sailed across the Ship Canal; as Andy and Helen Tidy said when we saw them ten days ago, going across the aqueduct is probably the least impressive way of seeing it.

On the other side of the aqueduct the canal runs alongside roads in Patricroft, then at Morton someone has seen fit to build a lighthouse in their garden.

We continued to Worsley, where we moored up opposite the Packet House.

We had a walk around the town, which has lots of information boards explaining the history.  The canal was built by the Duke of Bridgewater because of his coal mines here at Worsely, and behind the Packet House in the Delph, where little boats used to bring out the coal.

Our circular route took us over Alphabet Bridge, put in by the Duke and his family to help literacy, then to the Green,and back to the boat over another little bridge.

12 miles, 0 locks.  (184 miles, 96 locks)