Tuesday 8th September, 2015 at Uppermill.
A dry morning; the tops of the moors were still in mist or low cloud. Pretty, nonetheless!
The proximity of autumn is evidenced by the appearance of dew-covered cobwebs on our stern. The spider must have been hard at work all night!
The number of trains which pass by on the nearby railway line is quite astonishing. We can see their destinations from their headcodes: Scarborough, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Huddersfield, Liverpool, Manchester. The practicalities of getting them through Standedge railway tunnel at such frequent intervals must be a masterpiece of organisation.
We moved MM down the first lock, number 32W, commencing our descent from the 645ft summit pound. Ahead are 32 locks, labelled "W" for West, in just over eight miles. These locks have strange, drunken looking paddle gear.
The ground paddles create fierce whirlpools; you wouldn't want to fall in here!
Just below Lock 32W is a small tea room called Grandpa Greene's that sells, among other things, their own ice-cream. We moored up outside and went in for breakfast. Excellent!
The view below is typical of this section of canal - a very short but pretty pound with a lovely view down the next few locks and the former mills of Diggle in the background.
Diggle? What an odd, yet faintly amusing name! Imagine having to say you live in Diggle! However, it is a very attractive stretch of waterway here and the heather tumbles over the old stone walls in profusion.
Although the summit pound and the next couple of pounds were full, we soon found that the pounds ahead of us were increasingly short of water. In order to be able to proceed, we took quite a bit of water down with us. Despite this, we quite often ran aground.
It was generally impossible to reach the banks, even at lock moorings, so we developed a technique of nosing very gently into the top lock gate and walking along the gunwhale to get off, although M likes to walk between the locks for short pounds.
Lock 24W is situated right under a handsome railway viaduct and here we attracted a crowd of onlookers, all asking questions. They were all very good natured and R is not threatening them with his windlass!
Our destination today is Uppermill and what a charming little town it turned out to be! We had tea and cake sitting outside a quaintly old-fashioned café in the High Street and watched the world go by.
We paid a brief visit to the local Co-op and made our way back to MM via the stepping stones across the River Tame. That was fun!
A local resident told us that the council tried to encase the stones in concrete to make them all even and "safe", but locals were furious and hacked all the concrete off! Brilliant!
We had a very pleasant mooring close to the main street beside a car park, yet quiet and secluded.
Today: 2 miles, 11 locks and 4.9 hours.
Trip: 289 miles, 226 locks and 208.8 hours.
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