Back to Narrow Locks at last

We are in Middlewich having come up our first narrow (seven feet wide) locks since July last year.  It was a real delight.  Narrow locks are just Leo's cup of tea.

The last posting was from the Bridgewater Canal, so I'll bring you up to date from there.  On Saturday we just cruised for about half an hour and moored on the Bollington Underbridge.  This is a lovely spot that gives access by a track and a footpath to the National Trust property, Dunham Massey nearby.

Here is the house with some wild fallow deer in the foreground.  Last year we visited Dunham Massey and they were doing a special presentation about its role in the first world war.  Though we enjoyed that, we hoped we might see more of the house this time.  However they had found another story to portray of the 7th Earl who married a circus performer!

This stone is one of several recording poems written by Canadian and other soldiers billeted at Dunham Massey in WW1.  Its boating message seemed right for our journey.

This is the water mill at Dunham Massey.  It still works and grinds grain to make wholemeal flour.













On Sunday we carried on through Lymm and the built up area around Stockton Heath.

Lymm is a delightful though very popular spot on the Bridgewater Canal.

From near to where we moored (near Moore - how appropriate), we could see the Runcorn-Widnes bridge in the distance.











On Monday we left the Bridgewater behind and joined the Trent and Mersey Canal at the start of Preston Brook Tunnel.

Here we are waiting for our time slot to go through the tunnel which is about three quarters of a mile long.  It is only wide enough for one boat at a time and going south you are allowed through on the half hour, with boats going the other way at the hour.

Here is the southern end of the tunnel with these two houses built over the top.  Almost immediately there is a stop lock, the first lock we had met for nearly 40 miles.

The next section of canal is a delight giving views down into the valley of the River Weaver.  Here you can see Acton Swing Bridge which crosses the Weaver and swings for any high vessels.

There are a couple of short tunnels on this stretch and here you can just see the light of a boat following us through Saltersford Tunnel.

We moored overnight close to the Anderton Boat Lift which allows boats to pass 50 feet up or down between the River Weaver below and the Trent and Mersey Canal above. We have taken Leo on the lift a couple of times in the past (2012 and 2015), but this time we carried on along the Trent and Mersey.

Here you can see two narrowboats coming out onto the Weaver at the bottom of the lift.

This is a sort of 'Where's Leo' photo.  You can just see the boat below the left side of the bridge and this is where we spent the night among the tall weeds growing along the canalside.










On Tuesday we enjoyed a visit to the Lion Salt Works near Northwich.  This was fascinating and well worth the visit.

Cheshire is famous for salt and the 'wich' suffix on many of the names of the towns indicates the salt connection.  At the Lion works they pumped brine from deep below and crystallised the salt in huge pans heated by boilers below.  The works was in action from 1894 to 1986 supplying salt all over the world.

Later that afternoon we passed a new marina - Park Farm Marina - and took some photos.  It was only later in the evening when examining the photos that we saw this boat moored there.  This is Pas Meche, a boat owned by our son David and his partner until quite recently.

We moored on Tuesday on one of the wide lakes, or flashes, caused by subsidence from salt mining and brine pumping.  On a short walk around local footpaths we saw these unusual birds.  We expected cows but not ostriches!










Today we've cruised into Middlewich and up five locks, four of them being narrow ones.  Leo loves narrow locks and it was great fun to return to the land of the small locks once again.

 Before we reached the locks we crossed Croxton Aqueduct shown here.  This crosses the River Dane which flows into the Weaver at Northwich.  You can see that there will be no broadbeam boats beyond this point.

Here we are approaching 'Big Lock' so called because it is a wide (14 foot) lock.  This was used by barges before the Croxton Aqueduct was rebuilt to a narrower gauge.

This unusual looking boat was a new CRT vessel with an echo sounder to measure the depth of parts of the canal with a view to dredging.  It is a new piece of kit that the staff were clearly enjoying using.

And here is the first narrow lock.  Though it all looks very tight (and is) there is something about the effect of the narrow space that means it is easier than it looks to drive the boat in while hardly touching the sides.

And here is Leo in the narrow but deep lock.  The three narrow locks are each about 11 feet deep.

This is the junction where the Middlewich branch of the Shropshire Union heads right under the bridge behind the cruiser.  Purists will object because the first lock under the bridge is really called the Wardle Canal which has the claim of being the shortest canal at 154 feet long!  The junction is normally a bottleneck of boats but today it was fine.  The Trent and Mersey carries on under the bridge in the distance and up King's Lock.

This weekend Ian is off to Snowdonia for a walking event.  He was wondering if the name of this boat was an omen!

Round the corner under the bridge is Wardle Lock.  Here Leo is waiting for a boat to come down before we can ascend to where we are now moored.











From here our way lies along the Middlewich Branch and soon after that we will join the Llangollen Canal heading for Wales.  Lots more fun in store.