Heartbreak Hill?

Saturday, 24th August, 2013 at Rode Heath.
"Heartbreak Hill" is the nickname given to this heavily locked stretch of the Trent & Mersey Canal. The old boatmen simply called it the "Cheshire Locks" but the nickname presumably stems from the fact that there are 26 locks in six miles. Just when you think you've done the last one, there's another - and another - and another!
Actually, the locks went very well today. We did seven miles and 14 locks in well under five hours. Most of the locks are duplicated, there are two narrow locks side-by-side, and as there were several boats going up, there were always plenty of people to help and if someone was in front of you, they set the parallel lock for you and we did the same for those behind us.

In some cases, however, one of the duplicated locks was blocked off.  In one case it was being used as the overflow between the pounds! Quite a sight!

One or two of the locks also had warning notices on them to say that they were very narrow. You could see the side walls were bulging - so we used the other lock!

The water here is very brown, a sign that we are getting close to the Harecastle Tunnel, where the water is stained with ironstone from the old mine workings.
We passed under the M6 motorway, and felt very superior to be able to do our three miles an hour when the north bound traffic was at a standstill! However, the noise was horrible and could be heard  for a mile on either side.

The guide books talked of a Canal Centre and Post Office in Hassal Green village with excellent facilities and close to a very good 17th century pub rejoicing in the name of the "Romping Donkey". So we stopped in the village for lunch, but were sadly disappointed to discover that the Canal Centre and Post Office were closed (it looked permanent) and the beautiful old building of the "Romping Donkey" was  partly demolished and surrounded by security fencing. So we had sandwiches on MM instead.
We did see some lovely canalside cottages, one with a resident family of swans and several families of ducks outside the front door.

At Rode Heath, we moored up and walked in to the village to the Post Office to post some cards and buy a very "few bits". On our return to MM we saw that we had some young visitors who seemed to want to join us on board, so we shared some of our tea with them.

It was now late in the afternoon, so we decided to stay here for the night. The guide books metioned a wild flower meadow close by, created where there used to be a large salt works, so we went for a short walk to find it. Unfortunately the flowers are mainly finished now, other than some clover and ragwort, but it was a pretty place, certainly much prettier than a salt works!

Apart from some early rain, the weather stayed dry today, if a bit colder than recently, despite predictions of heavy rain. We even had a beautiful sunset over the trees.

As we did so well today, we have decided that we will try to go up the Macclesfield Canal from Kidsgrove to Congleton, where we hope to see Keith and Molly, Christine England's friends, on Monday.
Today: 7 miles, 14 locks and 6.4 hours.
Trip: 304 miles, 242 locks and 249.9 hours.