A Visit to RHS Bridgewater Garden.

 Wednesday 31st July 2024 in Bridgewater.

Today, we spent the day on the part of the canal where "Canal Mania" began. In September 1759, the Duke of Bridgewater obtained an Act of Parliament to build the UK's first canal that did not follow the course of an existing river. The canal opened on 17th July 1761 to carry the Duke's coal from Worsley into the centre of Manchester, with one horse able to pull 30 tons of coal instead of just carrying a few cwts. The price of coal reduced, the volume went up and the Duke made so much money that everyone else tried to copy his success by building canals. The "Packet House" at Worsley (below) is where it all started.

The canal was extended into the mine through this archway, which allowed the coal to be loaded on to boats inside the mine close to the coal face. These canals inside the mine also drained water from the mine and supplied water to the canal.

Just past Worsley is the new RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) Garden at Bridgewater. We moored up both boats and the four of us walked into the garden. At the moment the garden is doing a promotion with Shaun Sheep; Shelley and Harley had never heard of him (what???!) so we had to explain how popular and much loved are Shaun and his friends.

M insisted on getting a Shaun Sheep hat and entered into the spirit of the occasion.

The gardens, which cover 156 acres, are only seven years old and the RHS has worked miracles in that time. There is a very large walled garden (one of the largest in this country) and the borders are spectacular.

The site was originally the gardens of a large country house, long since demolished, but the scale of the original gardens can be judged by the fact that this house belonged to the Head Gardener!

The tower is actually straight, the angle is just a trick of the camera.

The day was very hot so the menfolk found a shady spot while the ladies enthused over the incredible variety of plants.

One section is being created as a Chinese garden with a small stream running through it. It has been designed, and is part funded by, a company in China. It is still work in progress.

The RHS Garden has an excellent restaurant where we had lunch before walking back to the boats.

Later in the afternoon, we found a shady spot under a tree next to the boats for a glass or two.

As the sun went down it began to cool off a bit. We had both left the boats open to cool off when we went to sleep and so we both had to get up in the middle of the night when it started to pour with rain!

At least the rain cooled everything down a bit.

Today: 4 miles, 0 locks and 1.4 hours.

Trip: 130 miles, 71 locks and 66.9 hours.

The OTT Trafford Centre and Palazzo.

 Tuesday 29th July 2024 at the Trafford Centre.

The sunrise heralded the start of a beautiful hot, sunny day.

We walked a few hundred yards back along the towpath to visit the factory of "Precision Investment Castings" This is where M's son's business partner did his apprenticeship many years ago. The business is still there and thriving; and much larger than we expected. We took several pictures to send to him.

Back at Kickback Coffee Roasters, we had breakfast with their excellent coffee.

R's coffee not only tasted great but it was also a work of art! It was almost a shame to drink it - but he forced himself somehow!

At Stretford Marina, both boats stopped for water and so that Lazy Bee could empty their Elsan. As ever, the staff were very helpful and welcoming. M photographed Shelley photographing M photographing Shelley...

Just past "Waters Meeting", where the canal branches off into the centre of Manchester, is the huge Kelloggs factory. M remembered that she had forgotten to get Corn Flakes but we thought it unlikely that we would be able to buy some from the gate!

We moored up outside the Trafford Centre. There are two parts to it, the "Palazzo" is the first building and then behind that is the massive shopping centre.

The Palazzo is built in the Greco-Roman style and is so completely "over the top" with life sized statues, fountains, dolphins, frescos, all topped off with hundreds of red Lancashire roses. We love it1

The only big shop in the Palazzo is a massive Primark, which Shelley and Harley set off to explore, while we went on to the main shopping centre to get lunch.

Lunch turned out to be at Wagamama, where we had our favourite starters. Always such a treat!

Having acquired a "few bits" at M&S, we returned to MM via the Palazzo, where we met the Emperor Augustus who seemed to be hailing a taxi.

We also met this lady who had obviously had far too much to drink the night before and was regretting the last few glasses of wine as she rose in the morning in a state of undress that is very common amongst the very many life sized female statues.

The Trafford Centre is built on the site of the first overseas plant that Ford built in 1911 to make the Model T; over 300,000 were produced here. During the Second World War, Ford's plant built 34,000 Merlin aero engines at the site, ending up producing 900 every month.

The Trafford Centre is still a major employer in the area but it no longer manufactures anything. It just moves money from one pocket to another.

Today: 6 miles, 0 locks and 2.3 hours.

Trip: 126 miles, 71 locks and 65.5 hours.

A Slitting Mill and Kickback Coffee.

 Sunday 28th and Monday 29th July 2024 at Kickback Coffee.

A beautiful early morning with not a ripple on the water. It looks like the arch opposite was once the entance to a canal arm that ran alongside a former warehouse, now converted to offices.

On Sunday morning, the four of us walked in to Lymm village for breakfast at The Coffee Shop. We found this shop last year and it has become our favourite place in the town. Breakfast was excellent. The Coffee Shop is right in the middle of the picture up the hill on the right.

Mr. Pearson's guide book mentioned a "Slitting Mill" in a gorge just north of our mooring, so in the comparative cool of the early evening, we went exploring. It was indeed a deep gorge carved out of solid rock, with a stream running through it. There used to be a dam to make a mill pond (long since gone). The foundations of the Slitting Mill, which opened around 1750, were excavated in 2005. The mill used to roll iron with two water powered rollers until it was about 3mm thick and then slit the resulting strip to make nails or barrel hoops. There were many similar mills in this area at the time until the advent of steam power in the mid 1800s rendered them uneconomic.

On Monday morning, M and Shelley went back in to town to the excellent butchers to collect meat that Shelley had pre-ordered.  M was very impressed by the quality of the meat and felt rather ashamed that she buys her meat in the supermarkets. Not only was the meat of excellent quality, it was also cheaper and she bought two days' dinner for less than £5! 

As ever, M stopped to admire the flowers on the way back and Shelley kindly posed for the photo. She has often said how much she loves our English gardens, which can produce flowers that would never thrive in Australia.

From this bridge across the canal it is just possible to see the high rise buildings of Manchester but you would need a telephoto lens to see them in a photograph.

Lymm is such a beautiful little village that it is tempting to stay longer, but we are on 48 hour moorings so we will visit it again on our way back.

Lymm Cross was built in the mid 1600s and was restored in 1897. At that time the sundials at the top were added with the inscriptions "We are a Shadow", "Save Time" and "Think of the Last". The old village stocks still sit below the Cross.

This house next to the canal is one of M's favourites. It used to belong to Harry Corbett, famous for his puppets Sooty and Sweep, which we all loved when we were young. The house is not for sale, which is just as well!

At the edge of Altrincham are these two, very nautical, apartment blocks.

We moored up outside "Kickback Coffee" where we moored last year (and the year before!).  It's in one of the old railway arches. We were pleased to see Toby stll working there and sat down for a great coffee and an ice cream with Shelley and Harley.

This afternoon, the  C&RT published an update on the Burscough leak; it said that passage was possible going slowly past the site while they decide what to do about it. Another bulletin will be issued on Friday 2nd August - so we will see what they say then. Hopefully, we will be able to continue but we want to make sure that, if we go past Burscough, we will be able to get back past it again on our way home. We do not want to get caught on the wrong side of it if the C&RT ends up closing it again and it would be an even greater problem for Shelley and Harley, who have flights booked back to Australia in September.

Today: 6 miles, 0 locks and 3.0 hours.

Trip: 120 miles, 71 locks and 63.2 hours.

News that might affect our Plans.

Saturday 27th July 2024 at Lymm. 

Today, we set off together again with "Lazy Bee" taking the lead. The Preston Brook tunnel is not far ahead and we timed our arrival to be able to go through on the hour. We made it with about a minute to spare!

At the north end of the tunnel, the Trent & Mersey Canal gives way to the Bridgewater Canal, which is owned by the Manchester Ship Canal Company and so requires a different licence. Luckily, as C&RT licence holders, we can cruise on the Bridgewater for 10 days if we register, which we did.

This chap seemed to be playing "I'm the King of the Castle!"M felt vertiginous just looking at him!

Lymm is one of the loveliest villages on the Cheshire waterways and it has good facilities, so the moorings are predictably very popular. However, we managed to get both boats in, although not next to each other. This actually worked well as MM was in the afternoon shade and had a good grass verge so Shelley and Harley could bring their picnic chairs down to us in the heat of the day..

During the day we received news that there was a leaking culvert at Burscough and that the canal there was closed. This was NOT good news as Burscough is on our way into Liverpool and we are due to go into Liverpool in just 14 days. Last year the same thing happened at exactly the same place and the canal was closed for five weeks while the C&RT tried to fix it. Luckily, last year, MM was the other side of the closure, so we manged to get MM into Liverpool withour problems. There will be an inspection on Monday and the CRT will provide an update. So, we decided to stay in Lymm over the weekend and wait to see what the C&RT says on Monday.

We walked down into Lymm for a "few bits" and to visit one of our favourite coffee shops.

In the late afternoon, we gathered on the towpath in the sunshine and chatted together as the sun set.

Today: 12 miles, 1 lock and 4.4 hours.

Trip: 114 miles, 71 locks and 60.2 hours.

Cruising with Shelley and Harley

 Friday 26th July 2024 at Dutton Hollow.

We set off from Anderton with "Lazy Bee" and "Many Meetings" one behind the other. 

There are two tunnels on this stretch of canal and, as they are not wide enough for two boats to pass, north bound boats can only pass through on the hour and south bound boats on the half hour. We arrived just too late to go through, so moored up to wait our turn.

As we waited, another boat sailed past and went into the tunnel, well past the time. It seems the rules just don't apply to some people. When the time came round, we went through and there was no sign of wreckage so they must have made it. Pity!!!

When these tunnels were being built, shafts were driven down from the surface and then dug from the bottom of the shafts out in both directions. Some of the shafts are still there to act as ventilation. They look a bit strange when viewed from the darkness below!

We moored up at the site of the Dutton Breach, where the embankment collapsed in 2012. We had moored here last year and R mocked up a picture of MM on top of the breach. It took six months to rebuild the canal.

After we had moored up, R went to write up the our boat log and he found that MM had reached a milestone of 3,700 hours running since she was launched in 2011.

We celebrated, together with Shelley and Harley, with a glass or two of wine sitting on the towpath. A lovely end to our first day cruising together.

Today: 5 miles, 0 locks and 2.1 hours.

Trip: 102 miles, 70 locks and 55.8 hours.

Finally We Catch Up With Shelley and Harley.

 Thursday 25th July 2024 at Anderton.

Our plan this year is to go into Liverpool with our amazing Australian friends Shelley and Harley with their narrowboat "Lazy Bee". They are slightly ahead of us at Anderton and today we intend to catch up with them. 

The first lock is Wardle Lock and just above it the C&RT were doing repair work to the lock mooring; lots of huge concrete blocks had already been removed. Their workboat was on the lock mooring so we had to tie up to it so we could go and set the lock. 

The Wardle Canal runs from the lock to Wardle Junction. It is the shortest canal in the country, barely longer than MM! Its sole purpose was to be able to charge tolls to go from the Middlewich Arm to the Trent & Mersey Canal. The photo below shows the full length of the canal!

The last lock before the Bridgewater Canal is "Big Lock", so named because it is a wide lock built at a time when it was hoped to widen all the locks on the Trent & Mersey Canal. Sadly, nothing ever became of the idea and all the locks south of here on the Trent & Mersey Canal are narrow locks.

We shared the locks with a delightful family from Sweden, more visitors from Scandinavia.

This part of the canal is very industrial. It is dominated by the huge TATA works that is undergoing a massive expansion. Business is obviously good! On the other side of the canal is another massive chemical works belonging to INEOS, recent sponsors of a team in the Tour de France and joint owners of Manchester United.

We often see cormorants at a distance but this fellow started following in MM's wake and diving in the distrurbed water behind us and, if we slowed down, he would dive down inches behind the propellor.

Twice, he got a bit left behind and took to his wings to catch us up. Twice, he surfaced with a fish in his mouth which he then swallowed whole.

Eventually, after following us for two miles, he decided that he had gone far enough and flew off back the way he had come.

Such an unusual experience to be followed so closely for so long.  We think that it might have been the approach of these paddle boarders that put him off.

As we neared Anderton, we passed the lovely Danish people whom we had seen at Nantwich. They were at the end of their two week hire and were on the way back to their hire base just below Big Lock.

Finally, we arrived at Anderton.  How lovely to see Shelley, Harley and Lazy Bee waiting!

We both cruised round the corner and found moorings next to each other just before the Anderton Lift. Needless to say we spent the rest of the evening in Lazy Bee catching up over a glass or two of wine.

 So good to see them again (it's been one year) and we are looking forward to travelling together for the next few weeks. It's going to be great fun!

Today: 10 miles,5 locks and 4.5 hours.

Trip: 97 miles, 70 locks and 53.7 hours.