What an Unexpected Surprise!

 Tuesday 14th June 2022 in Boothstown.

On Tuesday morning, we set off towards Boothstown. The first bridge marks the boundary between the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, Leigh Branch (controlled by C&RT) and the Bridgewater Canal, which is privately owned.

On the bridge behind us was the welcome to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.

And a few yards in front was the welcome to the Bridgewater.

Leigh is surrounded by several huge, and handsome, cotton mills. Unlike many local towns, almost all of them are actually being well maintained and being used as offices or as accommodation.

As we arrived in Boothstown, we called into the lovely little marina there to check that they were expecting MM on Thursday morning (they were!) and to top up with diesel (red diesel at £1.54 per litre!).

Round the corner, we moored up just outside the new RHS Garden. Finally, after weeks of indifferent weather, summer has arrived "up north"!

On the way through here in May, we had dropped in to the new garden for a couple of hours but we had earmarked today and tomorrow to spend more time exploring it. Considering that construction only started in 2015, and was slowed up by Covid, the progress is remarkable.

Today was "Salford Tuesday" when anyone from Salford (again, Lancs, not Surrey!)  can go into the garden for free, so the huge car park was full and there were literally thousands of visitors. However, like RHS Wisley, it is a very large area and is quite capable of absorbing, and catering for, thousands of visitors without feeling crowded. Huge swathes of paths had been mown through the long grasses to make lovely walkways.

This is part of the Chinese Streamside Garden, which already looks lovely, although there is more development work to do to expand the length of it. This was M's favourite bit. There is a lot of Chinese influence which has gone into the planning and development of much of this huge garden.

There is a large lake at the far end, which we walked around, and then walked back towards the entrance building through the "Victorian Meadow". Another favourite for M!

At the end of the meadow was a board explaining the local plants and, as we were studying it, we moved to one side to allow another couple to read it. Amazingly, it turned out to be R's brother Chris and his wife Gay who were on holiday from their home in Dorset! Impossible to decide which of us was the most surprised!

What an amazing coincidence that we were all here on the same day and that we ended up standing next to each other - out of this huge garden area and out of thousands of visitors. Serendipity indeed. Huge hugs all round, followed by cups of tea and coffee and a catch up.

We slowly made our way back to the entrance and out to their car and they left to continue on to Wales  for a few days. In a bit of a happy daze, we walked back to MM and declared this to be one of the absolute highlights of this trip!

Today: 5 miles, 0 locks and 1.6 hours.

Trip: 230 miles, 161 locks and 124.9 hours.