Appley Bridge

14 miles and one lock. During the morning we watched the C&RT guys and contractors working on repairing the bridge. Various rumours abound about how it was damaged. We heard that it was possibly a dumper truck, possibly a JCB and possibly a local farmer that damaged the bridge deliberately. On some land adjacent to

Coxhead Swing Bridge

We easily made through bridge 9 before the cutoff time and arrived at the vandalised bridge mid afternoon. We expected a bit of a queue, there was only Wombat II that had gone out yesterday. It poured with rain during the afternoon and evening so we just stayed onboard and read books.

Leaving Liverpool

We had extended our stay in Liverpool until Sunday because of the problem with Bridge 20 only being available at noon on Mondays and Fridays. C&RT’s arrangements for the Liverpool link is that boats arriving come in during the afternoon, and those leaving depart in the morning. The time slot allocated for leavers is 8:00

Salthouse Dock

For the past week we have being doing the tourist thing in Liverpool. The moorings are right in the heart of the docks, next to Albert dock which has in recent years been turned into a tourist attraction. The highlights for us were the Metropolitan Cathedral (including the Luytens crypt), ‘The Beatles Story’, an open

Along the Manchester Ship Canal

Andrew had arranged a trip for us on a Mersey ferry along the MSC. The trip started in Manchester so we took a taxi there at 8:00 as we had to be ready to board at 9:30. The trip lasted all day and it was very interesting to see the MSC from that perspective.

Liverpool

We have arrived! The weather overnight has been awful, cold, heavy rain and strong winds. Swing bridge 9 can only be used at certsin times to avoid causing traffic disruption. We had to get through before 7:30, so we set off at about 6:15. We reached the top of Stanley locks in plenty of time

Bridge 10 Melling

An early start to make sure we got to bridge 20 well before noon as we expected a queue, which was the case. We were third in a queue of eight. At noon they opened the bridge and let through the boats in the queue going the other way. So it was about 12:30 before

Halsall

In the morning we moved the boat over onto the visitor moorings to wait for Andrew and Sheila who were driving up from Dorset. They arrived just after two o’clock. Their stuff was unloaded then Sheila stayed on board and Andrew went off to park the car in Southport. We then set off just about

Parbold

13 miles a 8 locks. After four days of no locks we had some quite difficult ones today. Just after setting off we had to negotiate Plank Lane lift bridge. This can only be used outside of peak traffic times. So we set off early to get there before eight o’clock. In order to have

Pennington Flash

21 miles, no locks. As Sainsburys yesterday let us down, we planned to stop at Tesco in Sale to get the stuff we needed. Finding the right bridge to stop at proved a bit tricky. Not made easier by the shop symbol in Nicholsons being in the wrong place. Luckily technology in the shape of