Tiverton to Chester (Friday & Saturday) - 12miles, 8 locks 6 hours & 50mins

Friday 

We left Tiverton on Friday morning reasonably early.  The two days at Tiverton had been really enjoyable some great walking along the Sand Stone trail, George and I managed to walk to Beeston Castle.

The plan for Friday was to get nearer Chester, Rod was of Go-Karting in Milton Keynes on Friday night which was approx a 3 hour drive each way.  We attempted to moor at least 4 times each time the canal by the bank was too shallow and we couldn't get the boat in.

  Eventually we managed to find moorings at a village called Christleton, looked nothing from the canal but when I walked George it was really pretty and quite quaint.  

Rod went off to his Karting the team he was in finished 5th out of 12, the wooden spoon went to the Mclaren team, seems it is not  just formula 1 that they are not doing very well in!!  He got back at 1:45 a.m. - he must be mad!

Whilst Rod was Karting I spent several hours trying to work out our winter route, there are lots of closures for repairs from Nov-Feb, it was a nightmare but we have a plan, now!

Saturday

We headed in to Chester, the locks are all double ones now and pretty deep, which means the gates are flipping heavy!  Luckily we arrived at the first one just after another boat so we travelled all the locks to Chester with them.

As you come into Chester the canal runs alongside the City wall.

The last set off locks was a staircase of 3, luckily they give you instructions and it was much easier with two of us working the paddles.

By the time we had finished we had two guys on the bridge in front videoing us, a group of about 10 people watching from the middle bridge - no pressure! - I did think we should start charging appearance fees.

 We travelled through Chester and moored up near a golf course.  

Rod suggested that we could go to football as our old home town team Cambridge Utd, were playing Chester City.  So we walked into Chester to watch the match.  Now I appreciate that I support a team that only has 1 point and is manly holding up the rest of the Premiership, so I have nothing to crow about, but you have to admire all those fans that had travelled all the way from Canbridge, it was not the greatest of games. The most excitement was a penalty miss by Cambridge, which as Rod pointed out the guy wouldn't have scored if the goal had been twice as wide, final score 0-0, think I will stick to Premier league football, until next year when I will no doubt be watching Championship football.

We walked back to the boat quickly changed and walked into the City Centre, where we had a fabulous meal at Piccolinos.

Sunday we are off to see Mike and Liz via the vets at Warrington, poor George has an  ear infection.

(EH 339.1)