A Very Gentle Day.

 Saturday 9th July 2022 in Dunham Massey.

This was a lovely mooring shaded by cherry trees - very welcome, given that the weather has turned very warm.

An opportunistic family of swans drifted past but were sadly not rewarded with breakfast as we have no suitable swan food on board.

Considering that this is still Manchester, the canal creates a beautiful green corridor and you would never know how close the city still is.

Probably the source of our breakfast cereals of late! The huge Kellogg's factory with its lovely rich aroma of baking.

Waters Meeting has a picturesque name, but rather disappointingly fails to live up to it. It is where the Bridgewater Canal is met by the Rochdale, the latter of which heads off to the east through Manchester city. A short distance along the Rochdale is Old Trafford, which we had visited seven years ago. M was keen to visit it again but decided that Saturday was probably not the best day for a casual visit to a major football stadium. Next time maybe?

Altrincham was once a small town in its own right, but it has now been absorbed into the Manchester conurbation and exists only as the name of a suburb. It is actually quite pleasant and the canal is lined with industrial units, pubs and modern housing.

We had just remarked that an iced coffee would go down very well in the afternoon heat when, lo and behold, we spotted a sign: "Kickback Coffee". It is amazing how quickly MM can be made to stop and back into the bank! The result was two excellent and very welcome iced coffees. It was only a small business, tucked into a former railway arch, but run with expertise and enthusiasm.  We wish them well.

In Dunham Massey, there are visitors' moorings, so we moored up for the day. At least there was one ring to moor on to! While the Bridgewater Canal is lovely, there are very few proper moorings and even on restricted 48 hour moorings, you normally end up on pins.

This proved to be a delightful place to moor and we had a very restful afternoon and evening. Although we were rather shocked to hear later from the blue boat behind that, during the course of that afternoon, some mean person had climbed into their front deck and stolen that handsome brass tunnel light - and right under our noses, as we were just feet away on board with our stern doors wide open!  Can you believe it?

Today: 8 miles, 0 locks and 2.5 hours.

Trip: 244 miles, 161 locks and 131.1 hours.