Church Lawton to Hall Green - 7 locks, 5 miles, 4 hours

We were back on the move today.

On Wednesday afternoon the coal boat came by and we filled up with diesel, had the waste tank emptied and got 3 bags of coal.

We had to do a double take on Wednesday morning as a lady walked past with a border terrier and another dog, it looked just like George and Sandy!!

It was a bit of a miserable day, but we set off at 8:00, heading to the junction with the Macclesfield canal, we will be taking a brief excursion onto this before we go through the Harecastle tunnel.

This stretch of water on the Trent & Mersey is very red, it is as if we are sailing on rusty water. We think it is being made worse by the dredging that is taking place.

You can see how red the water is where it has been leaking through the lock gates.

The bridge ahead is the Macclesfield canal crossing over the Trent & Mersey.

As we got to the last lock on the Trent & Mersey we had a short wait as this is the first stretch of dredging.

The two barges are exactly the same, but the one nearest the crane is full and they have just finished emptying the other one, apparently when full they weigh about 25 tons!

By The Way is now turning onto the Macclesfield canal, just as we got round the bend we met another dredging barge, we had a brief wait of about 10 mins before we could get passed.

We then crossed over Trent & Mersey where we had previously passed under the Macclesfield.

We were only travelling to the first winding hole and then turning round to moor up.  On the way we went past the biggest stash of wood we have seen so far on our travels - don't think they are going to be cold this winter!

We are off through the Harecastle Tunnel tomorrow with Mike and Liz.

As we have a long way to travel tomorrow we decided to get the van to our planned stopping point, we can then drive back to get Mike's car.  To get back to boat we had to get a bus to Stoke railway station and then a train back to Kidsgrove, by which time it was dark and we had made a school boy error - no torch!!! We had to walk about a mile down the towpath with just the iPhone to light the way, luckily the moon was out and there was quite a bit of light pollutionand even more luckily neither of us fell in!

(EH 448)

Wheelock to Church Lawton - 20 locks, 4.5 miles, 5.5 hours

It was a bright crisp morning when we set off.

George has spent the last couple of days snuggled up as close to the fire as he could possibly get!!

The first job of the day was to reverse up the canal a couple of hundred metres to the water point!! Canal boats don't steer well in reverse but luckily we had the bow thrusters to assist with keeping the boat on track.

We knew we had a long day, given the number of locks we had to get through and it was doubtful we would pass much traffic on the way, yesterday two boats came passed and one of those was a canal and river trust tug, the bad news was that the last boat to go passed was heading in the same direction as we were going, which meant that the first few locks would definitely be against us - and so it was, in fact 14 of the 20 locks were against us meaning extra work :-(.

It was a lovely morning, cold, crisp and very sunny - perfect winter morning.

As we came through one of the locks, we met up with Ollie another Border Terrier, we had bumped into him on Wedenesday when George and I had gone for a long walk.

Ollie's owner kindly helped us through a couple of the locks, which was much appreciated.

Now please make sure you are sitting down before you look at the next picture!!

Yes Rodney is using a lock handle, a rare but beautiful sight!! The plan was he would wind down the slackers and open the gate, whilst I went on to get the next lock ready, he did get distracted on more than one occasion, as it would say on a school report - room for improvement :-)).

As we travelled on up the locks we could see a castle in the distance.

We did initially think this might be the hill that the Harecastle tunnel goes through but it is in fact, Mow Cop Castle, shows how much we know.

We finally passed a boat at lock number 14, which in theory meant the rest of the locks should be in our favour, not quite true of them all as some are leaking so badly they managed to fill up again before we got there, but we did at least have a few that could just be opened.

As travelled on we came through the first of 6 locks that would take us up to our mooring spot in Church Lawton.  We passed some nice bungalows with a variety of verandas over looking the canal, this one seemed a little extreme.

We finally arrived at the moorings, this was the view from the side hatch, as the sun started to go down.

(EH 433.3)

Church Minshull to Wheelock - Monday & Tuesday - 7 locks, 10 miles, 7 hours

MONDAY

We left Church Minshull for a short cruise to the outskirts of Middlewich.

It was a grey morning with a bit of drizzle.  The cruise was pretty uneventful, and we were moored up in time to have a look at Middlewich - it didn't take long!  Not much to the town at all.

It was getting dark when we got back, so it was time to get the log burner going, which George was most appreciative of!

TUESDAY

It was a really cold start, but the sun was shining, a proper winter morning.  We had heard it rain a couple of times in the night, some of it had obviously been mixed with hail or sleet.

We only had a short distance and two locks to the end of the Shropshire Union, we would then be turning onto the Trent & Mersey.  Just before we got to the end we passed this very unusual looking boat, it looks wide in this photo but was the same width as a narrowboat.

We had a bit if trouble at the second lock, one of the slackers wouldn't go all the way down - it needed a bit of brute force and I hate to say it a man :-).

Then that was it, we were on the Trent and Mersey, it was a real tight right turn, but Mr Brown got By The Way round it with no problem.

As we travelled on the sun really came out, it was still cold but really lovely and bright a nice change from all the grey we have had in the last couple of weeks.

Looks like it will be a cold one tonight, so the log burner is up and running and will be loaded with coal before we go to bed, it's really toastie and cosy.  I think we will be investing in a log burner when we return to dry land.

(EH 425)

Venetian Marina to Church Minshull - 2 locks, 3.5 miles, 3 hours

Rod started the morning playing with the engine - tightening the alternators belts, checking oil levels etc.

It was a bit grey and Sunday, so we were in no rush to set off, plus we weren't going very far and there is no risk of not getting onto a mooring, there are so few boats moving.

We found a lovely spot to moor up, this is the view from the kitchen porthole, how lucky are we!

We are pretty certain that this is the same place we moored up on our very first night on a canal boat when we hired from Black Prince, 6 years ago - that day was a bit different from today!  We were on Mike's boot camp itinerary and cruised for something like 12 hours, quite a bit of it was in the rain and it was almost dark when we stopped (it was June so didn't get dark till about 9:00 pm) - both Liz and I can still remember Rod's disgust when we offered him soup and a sandwich, as he stood on the deck, tiller in hand looking like a drowned rat!!!!  He got a fry up in the end!  Those of you that know him well, know he has trouble "moving, on" and this is one of those things that he can't get over, bless him :-)).

We are going to have a nice quiet afternoon, light the log burner and watch a film, after we have lunch Soup and a Sandwich!!!

(EH 418)

Wrenbury to Venetian Marina Middlewich branch of Shropshire Union (Friday & Saturday) - 8 miles, 9 locks, 2 lift bridges

Thursday was really windy with some heavy showers, luckily it was a work day for Rod so we weren't planning on moving, only one boat went past us all day.

The wind was so strong that it blew the chimney cover off, despite it being attached to the chimney by a chain - the chain snapped and off went the lid!!

The lid hit the roof of the boat and resulted in two big chips in the paintwork!!!

Nothing we could do on Thursday, but when we stopped on Friday, the paint brushes came out and George took up the position of foreman :-).

Saturday saw us come to the end of the Llangollen, we have loved our time on this really beautiful and rural canal, we are quite sad to be leaving it, but who knows what is round the next bend.

As we approached the final flight of locks, you can see the reservoir that that Llangollen feeds, which in turn supplies the Shropshire Union canal.

We made our way through the Hurlestone flight that would take us back onto the Shropshire Union.

The last lock was every bit as tight as on the way up, so the fenders were up again - breathe in!!

We headed onto the Middlewich branch, which is new territory for By The Way.

We spent the afternoon in Nantwich, so a visit to the the fish mongers was in order - we are stocked up on Seabass again!!

The sky cleared and there is a beautiful full moon tonight and we were visited by some late night feeders!!  They were so cute I had to give them some bread, cheeky things then started to peck the algae on the boat!!

(EH 414.2)

Chirk to Wrenbury Tuesday - Tuesday, 17 locks, 4 lift bridges, 28 miles

Firstly sorry for the lack of posts this last week.

I have no excuses, other than there was not much new to share as we are travelling back down the Llanngollen and Internet has been a bit hit and miss - neither of which are very good excuses :-).

We have had a real mixed bag of weather some sun, some rain and a bit of wind, but overall not too bad for the middle of November.

Rodney has entered into the spirit of Movember!

I have spent two days shopping, I met Carol in Birmingham on Thursday and the went into Manchester with Liz on Saturday, thanks to both ladies for lovely days.  Whilst I shopped and lunched in Manchester (the bottle of Presseco went down very nicely!), Rod and Mike chopped wood so we are now fully stocked up with wood to keep the old log burner going.

As we have headed back the canal has become significantly quieter, lots of people have gone into marinas or onto designated winter moorings.  Yesterday the sun was shining but even so we only passed 4 boats all day, still no queuing for locks:-).

On the sunny days the canals are looking beautiful with all of the different coloured leaves.

We are now back at Wrenbury which is good news as we can revisit Nantwich and the fish mongers as the last of the seabass went this week.  I know red cabbage doesn't really go, but it had to be used up, no room in the freezer compartment!!  Oh and we are also next to the Dusty Miller pub, which we visited last night, as we continue to support local businesses!!!

George remains as interested as ever in the locks.

We should be on the Middlewich branch of the Shropshire union by the weekend, which will be new territory for us, so I will have a bit more to share.  

Today and tomorrow are work days, but I need a couple of days to recover from the shock of discovering that Rod does know what a lock handle is for :-)).

I also discovered that I really should take the time to measure a route properly before going for a run at 4:00.  I thought it only looked like about 4 miles on the map, turned out to be more like 6.75, but one thing is for sure, I can run much faster when on a country lane and it is getting dark!! Won't be doing that again :-).

Llangollen Basin to Chirk Bank - 1 lift bridge, 2 tunnels, 9 miles, 4.25 hours

It was a cold bright start this morning - the first frost of the winter.

We set off early 7:30 as the forecast was for a bright start, we were not the only early starters as 5 mins in we passed a boat heading to the basin to turn around.

It was lovely to have the views in sunshine, we missed this on the way to Llangollen as it was hidden in the low cloud.

The canal twists and turns luckily we didn't pass anything till after the Aqueduct.  With the flow carrying  us forward the journey back to Chirk was over an hour quicker than the journey on Friday.

We were soon back at the amazing Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

Not sure how this gets by health and safety :-)

Just a bit nicer than on Friday!!

As we headed towards Chirk we crossed back into England.

Below is the Chirk Aqueduct and Viaduct, the first photo is taken from the canal, the second from the road, the second one is a bit dark as the heavens decided to open!

Below is tonight's tea and is included just for Michelle who requested more food pictures, we had the lovely pork and black pudding sausages from Ellesmere, with all the trimmings, definitely need to go for a run tomorrow!!!!

(EH 387.3)