A Long Day and Visiting Children

 Tuesday 20th August 2024 at Scotsman's Flash.

M was fascinated by this plant just next to MM's mooring. It turned out to rejoice in the name of "Devil's Beggarticks", amongst other names! The names of some of our wild flowers are hilarious!

As we passed through Burscough on our way to Liverpool, we had struck up a friendship with Adam, the General Manager of Hugo's restaurant. He'd never been on a narrowboat so had come to see MM that day and we promised him a short trip as we passed through Burscough on our return journey. Adam duly arrived at 9:30 and we set off a mile down the canal to the "Ring o' Bells" pub, where he had left his car on his way to work. He did an excellent job of steering MM and we would not be surprised to find that he gets involved with narrowboats again in the future.We rather hope he does!

On this stretch of the canal there are two sets of locks which were originally double locks side by side but one of the pair has been allowed to fall into disrepair. These are the lower gates of one of those  locks, now reclaimed by nature.

Our route from Liverpool is not exactly the shortest! In order to go south, you have first to go north and then south east and, soon after south west. The route is highlighted in yellow on the map. Clearly its course was designed to follow the contour rather than as the crow flies.

Just west of Parbold is the small village of Newburgh which, in the Second World War, was the site of top secret trials to see if raw sewage could be turned into rocket fuel - yes, really! This did not go entirely to plan at the trials and a much bespattered visiting French General was heard to remark "C'est manifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!"

Parbold village has what seems to be a fortified windmill, minus the sails.

The valley of the River Douglas is beautiful and quite reminiscent of the lovely Peak Forest Canal.

Travelling with Shelley and Harley on Lazy Bee has made this trip even more special. They are so much fun to be with and the two boats work so well together that they might just be sisters.

At the penultimate lock into Wigan, we passed a large group of children and adults. One small boy in particular sat on a bollard and watched in fascination as we went into the lock and started asking questions as the boats rose up. Soon we were surrounded by small people who clearly wanted a ride. Harley and R agreed to take two children each on to the next lock with their parents' blessing.

It was a pity that we couldn't take them all but Harley and R agreed that two each was enough to keep an eye on at the same time as driving the boats! The children on MM were Vienna and Toby and they were full of questions and very well behaved. At the next lock their parents recovered four very excited children who will remember this day for a long time.

Having gone on into Wigan, we found that the Wigan pound was a bit low but quite passable and so carried on to the two Poolstock Locks, which are normally quite challenging but today presented no real problems, and we passed through without any difficulty other than heavy gates and heavier paddles tackled heroically by M and Shelley.

Just after Poolstock, we moored up with the two boats breasted up side by side and celebrated a good long day's travelling with a glass of wine on the towpath.

As it had been a very long day, we retired early. We were just in time as a massive rain and hail storm hit us just after we had gone inside. Good timing! And there was even a rainbow to round off the day!

Today: 11 miles, 8 locks and 8.1 hours.

Trip: 212 miles, 99 locks and 108.6 hours.