Rookery moorings (again)

6 miles and 20 locks An eight o’clock start with the weather looking much better than yesterday. Almost the whole day was spent doing locks, but it was quite pleasant. The sun was out and we didnt have to wait at all. We met an upcoming bost at most locks. Several of the locks on

Above Church locks

A good day’s cruising today, though a bit cold at times. We set off at 7:30 and arrived at the top of Bosley locks about an hour later. Going down Bosley is a bit more time consuming than coming up. That’s because, unusually for narrow locks, there are double top gates. Also the top gates

River Dane Aqueduct

No locks today, just a short chug along the Macclesfield canal to the bottom of Bosley locks. We havent been this was for about 13 years, but we remembered how lovely the mooring here is. A short stop in Congleton for some shopping then we arrived here about 3 o’clock. We went a a walk

Red Bull Aqueduct

9 miles and 25 locks today. More or less all day doing locks as we climbed up through what is sometimes known sh “Heartbreak Hill”, though we rather enjoyed it. There were quite a lot of boats about. We were following an AngloWelsh hire boat. They were making resonable progress, though we did catch them

Rookery moorings

Our best trip ever up the M5/M6. As it was Saturday I expected it to be busy, but we made it in 2 hours 15 minutes. So a quick unload and we were off towards Middlewich. We shared Big Lock with a family who were then just going to turn and go back. When we

Oakwood Marina

An early start for us. Heddi and I got up and were away by 6:30, the others were still in bed. The only purpose of today’s rip was to get to Anderton to have a pumpout, then back to the marina . This was all done by twelve o’clock. A quick lunch, tidy up then

Just after Croxon Flash

12 miles and 8 locks. A day of queuing  today. It started off OK, but then started to get much busier. We were in a queue of 4 at Cholmondeston Lock. On exiting the lock we could see the queue for going up was much longer, we counted 12 boats. As we approached Minshull Lock

Hurleston Junction

A much better day today, the wind has dropped and the sun come out. We needed to go shopping as Nikki had left tonight’s meal in her freezer at home. A quick check with Nicholsons revealed that the only place likely to have a supermarket was Nantwich so we headed that way. There were more

Clive Green Bridge

Because of the ongoing Covid situation we haven’t been boating much at all this year. We were due to go camping in Wales with Nikki and family this week, but the forecast was for high winds and rain. So we have come boating instead. We arrived yesterday afternoon and did a few jobs. The Downs

No name place!

I normally title each entry with where we are, but I dont think here has a name. We are in the middle of nowhere on the Bridgwater canal about halfway between the Runcorn arm junction and the Daresbury Laboratory. This is our first cruise in over 6 months. We wouldn’t normally go this long, but