Leaving the Shroppie for the Middlewich Branch.

Sunday 18th August, 2013 near Church Minshull.
A lovely morning, bright and fresh after overnight rain. R made a special breakfast of French Toast with maple syrup! This time, M, R and Alex walked in to the town - it's much further than you think! The town centre is a delight with a wealth of magnificent timber framed buildings.

Many of the buildings are very crooked, a legacy of the subsidence cause by salt mining for which the town (and, in fact, all of this area) is famous.

Alex stood on a very worn set of steps used for mounting horses.

After lunch, we set off north and passed a magnificent sculpture of a traditional heavy horse created out of old lock gates.

We soon passed by the junction with the Llangollen Canal; its four locks calling us invitingly to turn towards North Wales. But not this time; that delight awaits us another year. Only a couple of miles further on, we turned off the Shroppie main line at Barbridge Junction and on to the Middlewich Branch, heading towards Middlewich and the Trent & Mersey Canal.
We passed nb "Brent Goose", the boat on which we had done the Anderton Lift with Jenni and Barry three years ago. Today we also passed nb "Silver Dew", the Anglo-Welsh boat that we hired on the Llangollen Canal the same year. So far on this trip, we have seen every single boat that we ever hired except for nb "Red Billed Finch" that we hired on the land-locked Mon & Brec Canal.
At Cholmondeston Lock there was a long queue of six boats waiting to go through. The guide books had warned of congestion here especially at weekends, mostly due the the proximity of so many junctions leading to so many different routes. We chatted to the other boaters and everyone helped with the lock, so the time went by quickly.

Jamie steered MM very capably for much of the day and even drove her in and out of the lock.

One more lock and then we decided to moor up for the night at a truly delightful spot overlooking the tiny village of Church Minshull on the one hand and a herd of Freisian cows on the other.
Jamie did some fishing and Alex made two new friends from the boat moored next to us.

A very pleasant end to another lovely day.

Today: 9 miles, 2 locks and 4.5 hours.
Trip: 262 miles, 209 locks and 218.2 hours.