More Stupid Swing Bridges!

 Friday 4th August 2023 in Litherland

We only needed to go about six miles today to get to Litherland, where there is a secure C&RT mooring. Mooring elsewhere here overnight is not recommended! However, the two swing bridges that we have to tackle are both heavily used by road traffic so we are not allowed to go through them until after the 9:30 rush hour. So, we set off just after 10:00.

Soon after we saw the very first house next to the canal, we had left the countryside behind and were now in greater Liverpool.

Our first swing bridge was No. 9. M went up to the control box, inserted the key and the lights on the control panel came on. M pressed and held the "Open" button. The lights and beepers went off as they should but then only one barrier came down. You can see that the far barrier still points at the sky.

At this point the whole system shut down, the lights went out and everything stopped working. A huge line of cars built up very quickly on both sides of the bridge. We quickly called the C&RT emergency number and within a few minutes we were called back by a local manager who told us that an engineer would be with us in about 45 minutes. In the meantime some of the locals, who were clearly used to this situation,  turned their cars around and drove away.

After about 20 minutes of explaining to the very tolerant motorists that the bridge was stuck, a local walker said that this happened often and what we needed to do was to press the "Open" and "Close" buttons together for about 15 seconds and that would reset the mechanism. We tried it and it worked!! Hurrah! The lights on the control panel came back on. When R pressed and held the "Open" button again, the other barrier came down and the bridge opened. Result! That is the bridge open at last and the control panel in the foreground.

At least next time that happens we will know what to try. We called the C&RT again to tell them that the bridge was working again and the traffic was flowing but we didn't know if it would open again correctly next time - and left them to it.

The Aintree Race Course is next to the canal but this is about all you can see of it, as there is a high wall between the canal and all the interesting bits. No racing today!

As we proceeded further towards Liverpool city centre, we were surprised at how very green it all was. There were houses behind the trees but often they were out of view.

The water is quite clear and so there is a lot of weed and lots of water lilies - often with just a narrow clear channel in the middle of the canal. As with the approach to many of our big cities, the proximity of the centre is heralded by an increase in detritus in the water; this was a typical daily harvest of assorted bits off the propellor.

Having had the first swing bridge break down on us, the second actually worked well, so M breathed a sigh of relief that she had finally done the last one. But... as we approached the C&RT secure mooring at Litherland it became clear that there was another pedestrian swing bridge blocking our path that had been installed since our guide book was written, as it was not marked in the guide. M's heart sank and her fear and trepidation were borne out by the fact that the padlock would not come undone and, when she finally got the stupid thing off and opened and closed the bridge by hand, the stupid padlock would NOT go back on. In the end M gave up and gave the key to R, who also had a hell of a job to get the padlock closed again. Frustrating! (note from M: the word "stupid" is the polite version of what she actually said!!).

Anyway, we moored up at the C&RT facility and M got the washing out before we walked to the massive Tesco next door for a bite to eat and to get a "few bits".

Later in the day, "Robert" from the C&RT came round to see us. He will be helping us down into Liverpool Docks tomorrow and asked us to be at the top lock around 9:00am, so we will leave here about 7:30 in the morning tomorrow. Unfortunately, heavy rain is forecast....

Today: 6 miles, 0 locks, 2.6 hours and 3 swing bridges.

Trip: 127 miles, 61 locks and 69.3 hours.