THE BIG SUMMER CRUISE--August 25th--31st


I'm sorry that there's been a little bit of a gap.
My mouse broke, and I had to wait for a new one to arrive.
I'd written all of this week's website and then the mouse gave up the ghost, and I couldn't save it!
And I'm sure it was the best report ever...........

Monday, 25th August
Well, we decided to stay on the Weaver and go to the far end downstream.
We were getting ourselves organised, when we had a phone call from Colin, a friend of Trev's.
He's the one who brought us the fold up bike, remember? Of course you do......
Colin and his wife Judy are great supporters of Walsall Football Club,
well, we all have our little phoibles!
They were coming up to watch Walsall play Crewe, and wanted to come and see us too.
So we got ourselves moving, and moored further up The Weaver,
to Acton Bridge, so that they could reach us by road.
It was good to have company, we seem a long way from 'home' up here.
Colin never comes empty handed; today he brought us a canal jigsaw!
They stopped a couple of hours, and then Trev went with them to watch the match.
Sadly they lost, but it was good for Trev to have a change from the boat.

Tuesday, 26th August
Today we went downstream to the limit of the navigation.
This is at White's Bridge, a swing bridge, which is only opened if boats are going
to go to the very end of the river and on to the Manchester Ship Canal.
The river was broad and deep, and we were able to open up the engine and give it a good thrash.


On the canal, it never gets the chance to go very fast,
it's a bit like running a car in second gear all the time.
There were hardly any other craft on the river, just a few narrowboats, and motor cruisers.
We saw two big ocean going boats which had come in through the lock from the MSC.
They'd been out for the summer, one to Ireland, the other to the Isle of Man.
One was a yacht with a tall mast, the other a huge motor boat.
They were so high that all of the swing bridges along the Weaver
--eleven in all--had to be opened to let them through.
They were coming back to their winter moorings in Northwich.
Up to the last mile or so, the scenery was magnificent,
beautiful rolling countryside, and long views.
The last mile was all the way along a chemical works at Runcorn, on one side


and a high embankment on the other.
We turned at the end and came back all the way to the lift.
We couldn't get on today, and so booked a passage for 9.00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Wednesday, 27th, Thursday 28th August
Up early for once, and round to the holding moorings for the lift.
The lift operator was there and up we went, half an hour early.
At the top, we were too long to turn left, and so we had to turn right,
go along to a winding hole, turn round and then go northwards along the Trent & Mersey.
We went throught two tunnels, Barnton Tunnel--572 yards long
and Saltersford--Tunnel 424 yards long. And I still don't like tunnels!
Saltersford Tunnel has a kink in the middle and so
you can't see if there's anyone in it until you're in it!
And they're both single boat width.
Our goal was to get to Preston Brook, the end of the Trent & Mersey canal. But there was another tunnel, even longer, with restricted usage times,
so we decided to turn round and head south.

This was quite a historic moment in our cruise really,
because it was the symbolic extremity of our cruise.
It wasn't the most northerly point, that was at Marple.
And it wasn't the most westerly--that will be at Llangollen.
But it seemed to us to be a decisive moment
in that we actually turned round and started the return!

As we came back through the last tunnel, we heard 'ghostly sounds'!.
There were ventilation shafts, and some of the local Mensa members
were on top, hooting and howling, and dropping stones.
As we came out of the tunnel, they were above us, and repeated their howling and stone dropping.
But someone must have reported it, because what they didn't see,
as they were far too busy trying to frighten us,
was that two members of the local constabulary were on their way up to them!

We came back down through Middlewich, where we picked up our post at the PO.
We moored up for the night at a flash--you remember what a flash is?
Good........


In the middle of the flash it's very shallow, as this boat found out to its cost!

There were all sorts of water birds there, and we watched a heron fishing for its supper.
It rained all night and most of the next day,
so we stayed for another night.
It's nice to have a rest!
Now I know you'll think that's all we're doing all of the time,
but in fact this boating lark is pretty arduous and active,
we're out in the fresh air all day,
and we sleep like logs every night, me for about ten hours, Trev for around eight.

Friday, 29th August
Very changeable weather today.
We were covering familiar ground today, as we came up this way.
We passed the picnic spot where we met the ladies
and the man who caught the ten pound carp
and the other one who played the accordion!
Up through the locks, and there we lost a fender and couldn't find it,
even with the Seasearcher magnet.
It was very busy through there today, all the hire boats were rushing to get back in time,
and the constant flow of water must have moved the fender along the canal.

Then we turned on to the Middlewich Branch, which joins the Trent & Mersey
with the Shropshire Union. This was a delighful canal, very rural and pretty.
We moored in a quiet spot, all on our own.



Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st August
We continued along the Middlewich Branch to its junction with the Shroppie--as we boaters call it!
The Middlewich was all too short.

On The Shroppie we turned north a little way, as we had planned to meet
an old school friend of mine who I hadn't seen for thirty years!
We moored near Bunbury, and ended up staying here for four nights.
the longest we had stayed anywhere on this trip.

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