An Elaborate Bird Hide with no VIew.

 Thursday 29th June at the Anderton Lift.

Hooray! A beautiful warm sunny morning so we made another early start in eager anticipation of breakfast in the cafe in the Anderton Lift visitors' centre. We moored up on the 48 hour moorings just before the lift and set off for the visitors' centre.

Horrors! The gate was shut! The notice says "Closed Thursdays" - Boo! How could they??

Back to MM for breakfast instead.

Next to the Anderton Lift is an extensive nature reserve where there used to be a number of huge salt works. In view of the lovely morning, we decided to stay here today and walk round the reserve and its wild flower meadows. A rather grubby notice board showed the main paths that criss cross the reserve.

The entrance gates were imaginatively created to look like large insects, a teasle and a pine cone.

It was a lovely walk but the area was very much overgrown in places. This bench was not only covered in growing plants but it had no view of the river because of the tall reeds.

This notice announced the "Sand Martin Bank", which touted an opportunity to see many rare species of migratory birds from the "hide". A flight of steps led up the side of a bank with the promise of a large lake on the other side.

Another notice displayed all the many birds that eager bird spotters could see from the large and elaborate hide with many eye level slits so you could see without being seen.

Sadly, all you could see through the slits was the tall overgrown bushes, which clearly had not been cut back for years. So disappointing. However, we did see a huge variety of wild flowers on our walk; M counted about forty different species.

Back at MM, we noticed that the nearby Anderton Marina advertised a coffee shop and restaurant so, having been thwarted for breakfast, we decided to try it for afternoon tea.

It turned out to be a proper restaurant, tables laid beautifully for dinner with real tablecloths and it had an excellent menu. It normally closes from 4:00 to 6:00 but, as it was only 3:30, the owner was happy to serve us tea, coffee and excellent tea cakes on the terrace overlooking the marina.

Back at MM, we spent much of the evening chatting to our neighbour, Peter on nb. "Moriarty, moored up behind us.

Today: 1 mile, 0 locks and 1.1 hours.

Trip: 45 miles, 52 locks and 33.3 hours.