Cheshire, eventually: Day 14

After I’d posted the blog yesterday we had a call from Carol and George (ex Rock’n’Roll and Still Rockin’) in response to a message we’d sent earlier.  They came round for a cup of tea — and volunteered to combine their morning walk today with helping us down the remaining Audlem locks.  Of course the help is nice, but more than anything it’s lovely to see them, and give them a proper canal fix!  This morning the first boat headed down the locks before 7am, and before 8 another couple had been past.  We set off at about 8.15, thinking we should get into the procession before any more boats came along.

George and Carol parked by the Shroppie Fly and walked up to meet us, bringing their own windlasses.  Carol worked ahead, often joining the crew of the boat in front, while George and I stayed at the lock we were in.  We were also chatting a lot, so the only photographic evidence I have that they were here isn’t very good!

Audlem is always a pretty flight, but unusually the notorious bywashes were hardly running at all today, and some of the pounds were even a bit low.

For most of the run, we’d caught up with the boat ahead, and they’d caught up with the boat in front of them.  Then the lead boat moored up after Lock 11, and at Lock 12 there were boats coming up.  We still had to turn the one by the Shropshire Fly, though.

There’s a water point below that lock, and an Andersen hire boat which had been using it pulled off as we came down.  That meant there was an extra boat between us and the next lock, so the last couple seemed to take quite a while.  When we got to the bottom, we moored up, put the kettle on, and plied our helpers with chocolate biscuits to say thank you.  Then we said our goodbyes; I’m sure we’ll see G&C soon, because we’ll be in this sort of area for a while now.  Before setting off again we got the washing machine going, and waited for the wash part of the cycle to finish.  By now the sun had really come up, but there was a very stiff breeze which had a bit of an edge to it.

We had lunch on the move, then arrived at Hack Green Locks.  This always seems to be a place that never goes as smoothly as it should, and today there was a bit of hanging about while a CRT man prodded at the wooden buffer on the cill of the top lock, which is at a jaunty angle.  We were also following a hire boat down.

The wind was ridiculous at times, but at least it was mostly head on.  I would have lost my hat several times if I hadn’t had the chin strap deployed.  We reached Nantwich and crossed the aqueduct.

After the aqueduct the canal turns a right angle, and suddenly the wind was from the side, meaning I had to put some power on to avoid being blown sideways into the moored boats.  As the water point was free, we stopped to top up the tank and also use the handy recycling bins.  We then had trouble getting away from the side, which seemed odd as the wind had been blowing the other way earlier.  Immediately after the water point is the bridge which marks the end of the former Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal; beyond it is what used to be called the Chester Canal.  It’s all the Shroppie these days.

We’d originally planned to moor just before Hurleston Junction, but going up the locks at the start of the Llangollen would be more convenient, so we decided to do them.  Adrian jumped off at the junction bridge while I brought the boat round.  You have to take quite a wide arc here, and the wind was now sideways on.  Fortunately the bottom lock was empty and Adrian got the gates open quickly, and I was able to let the boat be blown level with the lock, at which point I gunned it into the chamber.  The only photo is from once I was in there.

There was a hire boat coming down the second lock, so we could swap — although they had to go back and re-open one of the gates which had swung shut.  The first member of crew to come down to my lock explained that the strong wind was blowing their boat onto the side; I did feel like asking what she thought it was likely to do to me.  Anyway, I managed to get round them and into the lock.  The next two pounds were very low, as much as 18 inches down, which made crossing the pounds tricky.  At the top, there are fantastic views across to the hills of east Cheshire and north Staffordshire.

There’s also a sign above the flower planters, which suggests there’s been an issue.

We moored up through Bridge 1 at the top of the locks at just gone 4pm.  It’s been another long day, but with good company and a couple of stops thrown in.  It’s been one of those rare trips where the number of locks exceeds the number of miles, and by quite a margin.

9 miles, 19 locks.  (113 miles, 139 locks)

Cheshire, eventually: Day 13

Finally, we have arrived in Cheshire, having started the day in Staffordshire and crossed Shropshire.  We knew we had quite a journey to do today if we wanted to get back on schedule, so with lots of miles before the first locks I got up first and got us going.  We set off at 7.15 and they were already moving the day boats about at Norbury Wharf.

At Grub Street cutting, I took the photo which has to be taken.

The former Cadbury works at Knighton was looking much neater than we’ve seen it recently, and the boat moored outside says the owners are ‘profiteers in all things decent!’.

We crossed the border into Shropshire, but the weather was so different from yesterday that The Wrekin was only a vague outline on the western horizon.  The sun hasn’t really come out at all today, and it’s around ten Celsius cooler.  Before Goldstone Wharf, there are a collection of camping pods, which don’t yet appear on Google maps.

Woodseaves cutting is deep, narrow, and very green.  There are also the remains of several land slips.

We hadn’t seen many boats all day, but when we got to Tyrley Locks, a boat coming up the top one said we had four boats in front of us.  The cottage by the lock now has flowers all over it, rather than UKIP banners.

Adrian was working these locks, and discovered that the boat in front of us was a single hander who didn’t want any sort of help from anyone.  Even when he’d left a lock he would rather faff about with a pole than let someone else close the gates.  Consequently, our progress was slowed quite a bit, although the five locks still took only just over an hour.  At the bottom of the locks, the tree stump man has had a makeover.

Fortunately, the single hander had stopped for water in Market Drayton, so we slipped by.  We had lunch on the move, then arrived at Adderley Locks which I was working.  There was a boat coming out of the top lock, and the second one was full and the gate had swung open.  There was a boat going down in front, but we also passed two more boats going up.

Between Adderley Locks and the top of the Audlem flight we crossed from Shropshire to Cheshire.  At the locks, we still had the boat in front, but there’s always the stand of goodies to choose from by the top lock.  We ended up with some flapjack and a pork pie for lunch tomorrow.

Below the top lock, one of the local cows was having a paddle.

We followed the boat down the top two locks, and we both wanted to moor in the next pound.  The other boat had had a look at what was available, and opted to stop before the official moorings, but thought we’d fit into a space a couple of boats ahead.  Fortunately, we did.  We’d been on the move for more than seven hours, which is the sort of day we’re not really supposed to be doing these days!  Just along from us was another Braidbar boat, Hollingworth, so we went to say hello to Alex and Alan and their four miniature dachshunds.

When we had the share boat, Debdale, it was based at Norbury Junction for a while so we did the Shroppie a lot.  But looking back at our journeys on this boat, we’ve realised this is the first time we’ve done the canal heading north.  The previous four occasions have all been southbound as we seem to have used the Shroppie as the way back from places.

16 miles, 12 locks.  (104 miles, 120 locks)

Crick boat show winners and widebeams

The August Canal Boat is out, and includes the first part of our review of Crick Boats.  This one covers the three narrowboats which came top in the vote for Favourite Boat, plus the two widebeams.