Sunny again this morning, and we set off at 8.30. We stopped again shortly afterwards at the service block, where we filled the water tank and got some washing on, leaving there on the dot of 9. The next section is quite familiar now, going through Marbury woods, along Marston New Cut, and past the Lion Salt Works. As we weaved our way through the boats at Wincham Wharf, I was just thinking that I’d never seen a train go over the railway bridge, when one did: Manchester Piccadilly to Chester.
The chemical works looks even more industrial in this direction, probably because so many pipes are visible.
As we approached Oakwood Marina, one of their day boats had just set off and come through the bridge. Then for some reason it veered across the canal right in front of us and hit the bank. It took him a few moments to sort himself out from being across the canal, and we snuck round him. The tea room at the marina was busy, and so was their camping field, which borders the next, larger, flash.
Bramble Cuttings had the full complement of three boats moored, so we couldn’t have stopped there even if we’d wanted to. As we approached Croxton Aqueduct, a boat looked as if it was getting ready to set off, and asked if we were going up Big Lock and could he come with us? We were, and he did.
A hire boat had just come down, and said the pound above was very low and they’d been told to stay in the middle. We’d originally planned to stop by the park, have lunch, and get some shopping. But having seen how low the pound was we thought it might be better to go up the next locks as well. It was a real struggle to get through the bridge hole on the corner, and the Andersen hire boats were on a bit of a tilt. A small boat had come out of the bottom lock of the Middlewich three, so we couldn’t go in. The problem was that the pound above was about two feet down.
When the lock was full I gingerly took the boat forward, but couldn’t get over the cill. I reversed back into the lock and Adrian went to run some more water down. I waited until the level had gone up by a couple of courses of bricks, and could then get out. Of course running water hadn’t done the pound above any favours, so that one was also taken very carefully. Even above the locks, the hire boats (from the somewhat ironically names Floating Holidays) were aground at the edges.
Adrian had walked up to the junction, where a boat had just come down Wardle Lock. It meant he could just open the gates and I could go straight in. He also took a little video of me making the sharp turn under the junction bridge.
We moored a couple of bridges along the Middlewich Arm. It was nearly 2pm, so lunch was a bit late. We chose a spot with a bit of shade. However, we were pleased we made the decision to return to the land of reasonable water sooner rather than later. Big Lock and the Middlewich Locks are due to close on Thursday, but the water situation is only likely to have got worse by then.
The antibiotics I’m on have a side effect of making you susceptible to sunburn — so I’ve been liberally applying sun screen. However, my hands have still got really burned and are quite painful. This afternoon a few Andersen hire boats have been past, one of whom came into the side of us when he inexplicably slammed the boat into reverse, and then went on to hit the next boat along too. I popped out to make sure they were ok, and gave them a few pointers. With a whole load of boats coming up Wardle Lock, the level here is now a bit lower than it was, but hopefully some of them will be going up Stanthorne Lock as well this afternoon to send come water down.
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