Sunday 8th June, 2014 just north of Congleton.
Woke to a nice morning, bright and breezy. It being Sunday, we had boiled eggs for breakfast in place of our usual porridge.
All our wet clothes from yesterday, plus any dirty washing, went into the machine and was then pegged out on the washing line. By mid-day, everything was dry so we were able to set off towards Bosley locks.
What a difference going down from when we had come up last week! With today being sunny and a Sunday, there were many folk out walking and cycling.
There were also far more boats on the move, which resulted in ten of the twelve locks being in our favour thus reducing the time it took to get through the locks from over three hours (on the way up) to just two hours (on the way down).
When we got to the bottom of the flight, we moored up in the same spot as last week to put the kettle on for a cuppa.
No sooner had we finished mooring up than the heavens opened and it started to rain and hail very hard. Good timing! We couldn't help feeling sorry for the people that we had passed who had just started up the flight. You can't moor up in the flight - once you start you have to go on to the end. They must have got soaked!
Later in the afternoon as the weather improved again, we decided to move on a bit further and stopped north of Congleton just past a very psychedelic cow.
The reasons for moving on were two-fold. Firstly, a reputedly good walk to "The Cloud" from where we finally moored (The Cloud is a very prominent hill just over 1,100ft one mile from the canal) and secondly, a nearby pub called the "Robin Hood", which came highly recommended. It used to be the local courthouse and is noted for its ghost sightings- but the real draw, of course, was the name.
R rang to make reservations (and to make sure that it was still open - sadly, so many canal pubs have closed down). When he was asked our name and he said "Robin and Marion" the landlord didn't believe him; he thought we were having him on!
When we arrived at the pub, we asked the landlord for the best route up to "The Cloud". He laughed and told us that he had only taken over the pub two days before and he didn't even know where his bedroom was, let alone any local landmarks. However, he introduced us to a regular, who was very helpful and told us the best way.
As he was talking, a beautiful steam traction engine pulled in to the car park. emblazoned on the side of the canopy was "F. Dibnah". R got talking to the driver, who turned out to be Fred's son, who lives close by. He explained that they had been doing some work on the engine and needed to give it a run - so he had popped down to the pub with it. R said that was really being "driven to drink"!
Following an excellent meal, we left the pub just as the traction engine was leaving with Fred's son - and small grandson on board!
We walked happily back to MM after another lovely day.
Back on MM we heard a massive splash further down the canal. Had someone fallen in? We looked but couldn't see anything amiss; however, shortly afterwards a very disgruntled looking bullock waded past on the far side of the canal up to his shoulders in the water! Luckily there was a place further up where he could clamber out on to the bank but by the time that we stopped watching him with our mouths open and grabbed the camera, he had already climbed to safety.
He seemed none the worse for his quick dip in the canal.
Today: 3 miles, 12 locks and 3.7 hours.
Trip: 74 miles, 40 locks and 47.3 hours.
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