Finally off the Leeds and Liverpool

 This is just a short post bringing us up to date before we leave boating for a few days on 'grandparent duty'!

The last post took us up the East side of the Leeds and Liverpool and last Sunday through Foulridge Tunnel . Here are some highlights of the last week coming down the locks on the west side of the Pennines:

On Monday we came down the 7 Barrowford locks and through Burnley. The picture shows us near the east side of the Burnley embankment. Right by the boat we are crossing an aqueduct over a road down below. Ahead stretches almost a mile of embankment some around 60 feet high crossing two river valleys.

We moored on Monday near Hapton and this is the view from near the boat looking towards Pendle Hill

Waterweed has been a big feature of the west side of the L&L. This is just duckweed which is not too difficult to navigate, though it can hide other hazards under the water.

Here we are with narrowboat Violet Clare with whom we have shared many locks lately. We get on well with Judy and Eddy from Violet Clare not to mention their dog, Blossom. The picture shows us in the top lock of six at Blackburn.

Here is another weed picture looking behind us at the channel we have cut through the duckweed.

Jackson's Hillock near Chorley is another flight of 7 locks taking us towards Wigan. The picture shows Violet Clare following Leo down the locks.

Here at the top of the Wigan Locks is an altogether more difficult weed. As well as the duckweed there are huge clumps of Pennywort an invasive and rapid growing menace which does clog the propellor very quickly. To avoid problems and to try to stop the Pennywort coming down the locks with us, we pulled Leo into the top lock by hand.

The Wigan flight has 21 locks and is pretty intimidating as maintenance has been poor and there are few apart from willing locals to help. A Facebook group called 'Wigan Flight Crew' is well worth studying before going up or down. The more serious problems we had this time were with the pound between locks 72 and 73 which goes dry every night and where both boats went aground in lock 72 and took a lot of work to shift. A second problem was with a gate paddle at lock 81 which refused to close and made it impossible to open the tail (lower) gates despite four people pushing  one lock gate. We resolved this one by winding the offending paddle up and then down again forcing it to more or less close. These were the more serious issues but almost every lock leaks through gates or walls or has paddles out of action or gates are stiff.

We had promised Eddy and Judy some Chorley cakes that we had bought as an award when we finally got down the locks. Eddy certainly looks pleased!

Once down the Wigan Locks we turned left at the junction, descended the two Poolstock locks and then followed the Leigh branch of the Leeds and Liverpool which connects with the Bridgewater Canal. Here we are waiting for the Plank Lane Lift bridge to open for us. The bridge is normally operated by boaters but the roadway needs repair and at present this means that the bridge is only opened once a day at 10 am. So, at the appointed hour this morning, three boats went one way and four the other. This gives a good idea of just how few boats there are moving round here.

Later this morning we crossed the Barton Swing Aqueduct shown here. This takes the Bridgewater Canal across the Manchester Ship Canal and can be swung, full of water, to allow ships to pass underneath. Amazing.

Here is the view looking  west while crossing the aqueduct. The road bridge beyond also swings. The tower is for the bridge controller.

And that brings us up to date. Tomorrow we are travelling south by train for a few days looking after our grandson. Once we return, our canal travels will continue along the Bridgewater heading broadly south. We  haven't yet decided which way we are intending to go, so that will be for you to discover in later postings on our blog.