2010 my third year on Almyne
Sat, 3 Jul 2010
5½ miles 7 swing bridges
I'm off doing stuff elsewhere, so Belynda is taking Almyne for a drive, no locks though.
Mon, 5 Jul 2010 10 miles 4 locks 9 swing bridges
Set off today in the sunshine, it soon got a bit windy and by the middle of the afternoon it was blowing up quite hard.
Moored up just after four, because the water shortage!
The water shortage restrictions means that each flight of locks is only available between 10 am and noon then between 2pm and 4pm. Although we arrived before noon we missed the morning slot because there was a queue of boats waiting to go up the flight. We were the second pair of boats to go up in the afternoon and got part way up the flight only to be told 'you won't complete the flight by four, you'll have to moor up'.
So that is just what we did, and had dinner.
After dinner I was sat on the after deck and heard a shrill whistling, or peeping. It was, as I had thought, a curlew, in fact a pair of them flying around the field adjacent to us.
Lez has a very good camera and she tried to take some pictures of them. If they come out I will try to get copies from her.
That was the highlight of the day.
Tue, 6 Jul 2010 7 miles and 11 locks
canal on the section into Barnodswick follows the contours of the hills, which when you are this high up, makes for a tortuous route, twisting and turning. At one point I could look round and see Lez and Ray to one side of me travelling in the opposite direction, even though they were about 3/4 of a mile behind me round the bends.
The lock keepers today were telling us that unless there is a substantial amount of rain the Leeds and Liverpool could be closed to navigation in just over two weeks. We found out today that the Rochdale Canal is closed at Sowerby bridge due to the lack of water. Generally it was a good day and we still hope to make it to Wigan on Sunday. The other canals don't seem to be suffering as much with water shortages.
Wed, 7 Jul 2010 17½ miles 7 locks 2 tunnels
Set out this morning at about eight after a breakfast of peanut butter and marmalade on toast.
Starting at Barnoldswick, completed a goodly portion of the journey towards Wigan, where we are going to meet up with Kathy.
Finished off at four forty-five just past bridge 117, which is between Hapton and Clayton le Moors.
Quite close to the motorway, but I will just take my hearing aids out tonight.
Plan is to set off by eight in the morning again.
Forecast said the occasional shower, my foot. It rained on and off for most of the day, sometimes as heavy as it was when I lived in the caravan at Box Hill.
Changed out of wet clothes twice so I will probably get the fire going to dry them all off.
Fortunately it is not cold.
By the time we were moored up the rain had stopped and the sun was trying to peek through, so hopefully it will be better tomorrow.
Thu, 8 Jul 2010 16 miles 6 locks 2 swing bridges
Set out this morning at eight again, after breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast.
Travelled till noon, when we got to Blackburn, where we took time out to go shopping. I got some biscuits and eggs, oh and a fresh loaf of bread.
Nearly missed the mooring point. Went past it and then tried to reverse back to it but the wind caught me and threw me all over the cut.
I ended up turning around, going back a bit and then turning around again to moor up alongside Morgan le Fay.
Set off again at half two and did six locks and another 4½ miles. Mostly dry with the odd bit of drizzle and the occasional gust of wind.
Not much of note. so I will leave it there
Fri, 9 Jul 2010 15 3/4 miles 6 locks 4 swingbridges
Has anybody noticed just how many swing bridges there are on the Leeds and Liverpool canal? We seem to do several every day and although they are not that much in the way of hard work, there are an awful lot of them, which inevitably slows us down.
After stocking up at the supermarket we carried on to Blackburn Locks only to find them padlocked. Last entry is supposed to be 4pm and this was at 3 pm. Lez went off down the flight on foot in search of a lock keeper while I phoned BW. Lez returned after finding a lock keeper, who also seemed confused about the restrictions, however he did come and unlock the gates for us so we could carry on.
Now we are back in urban sprawl the canal is exhibiting the array of bottles, cans, bikes and supermarket trollies that I have come to expect. I can now recognise trollies from all the major supermarkets and DIY store by an eight inch portion of their handle protruding above the surface.
We emerged from the suburbs of Blackburn and moored up near an old paper mill with acres of woodland surrounding it. Only about 20 lock miles to the top of Wigan Flight now, so we should we down the flight on Saturday, water levels permitting. With the lack of rain in the area there are threats of closing the Leeds and Liverpool, and even though it has been raining I doubt it has made any impact on the water levels.
I just hope we can get to Wigan before it does get closed.
Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14 3/4 miles 7 locks
We have made it! We are now sat at the top of Wigan Flight, we might be able to go down tomorrow but there is one boat in front of us waiting to go down so if BW are only allowing one passage per day we will have to wait until Sunday.
I tried out my bus pass and visited with Kath
for the night.
Sun, 11 Jul 2010 4 ¼ miles 23 locks
Made it back to Almyne and Morgana le Fay nice and early. There was no problem with BW letting three boats down so John and Jackie took the lead and we all set off. It was warm but not too hot thankfully and with John on his boat and Ray taking Morgana and Almyne that left Jackie, Lez and I to do the lock wheeling, with a bit of help from BW.
It seemed to be a well maintained flight, some of the paddles were a bit stiff but not many. Our only problem was one we knew about before we started. One lock halfway down has a gate that doesn't open, so we had to separate the boats and take them out one at a time. We made good time and got down through the 21 locks in less than five hours. We turned the corner onto the Leigh Branch, down through the Poolstock Locks and met Kath who had brought Destiny up to meet us. Then we headed back to Ince Moss to moor up.
Lez and Ray spent the evening playing with their kittens, the ones that they are having from Kath.
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 6½ miles 1 swing bridge
British Waterways have announced that the Leeds and Liverpool Canal will be closed from the 2nd August between Lock 30 (near Gargrave) and Lock 85 ( the bottom of Wigan Flight). That is the stretch we did last week. The rest of the network just seems to have cautions about reduced water levels.
Today we moved on from Ince Moss to Astley Green. As we were getting ready to leave we saw 6 or 7 black mink playing on the opposite bank. It wasn't a very long journey, no locks and just one swing bridge. We did have a bit of rain on the way, and then a thunderstorm while we were at the pub but I don't think that was enough to make a difference to the levels in the reservoirs. It did give us an excuse to stay for another pint though!
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 1 ¼ miles
As you will have noticed we haven't moved very far. The weather has been lousy, I know we need the rain but couldn't it rain for half the day and be nice the other half instead of 15 minutes rain, 15 minutes dry, on and off all day.
Moved up to Worsley, not very far but it meant we could all fuel up at the boatyard on the way. The canal hereÊisÊorange, apparently it is due to iron compounds dissolved in the water. At the DelphÊin WorsleyÊthere is the entrance to the old underground canal network which linked the Duke of Bridgewater's mines. There were over fifty miles of underground canals but they are all closed off now.
Sun, 18 Jul 2010 8 ¼ miles
And in to Castle Quay, just a mile from the beginning of the Rochdale canal where we were two months ago.
We set off around lunch time with the usual Manchester weather, drizzle, dry, rain, dry for nearly 3 hours.
Wed, 21 Jul 2010 1 mile 9 locks 1 mile 9 locks
Went up into Manchester to complete the nine locks on this stretch of the system that I haven't done yet, and then back again.
Thu, 22 Jul 2010 6 3/4 miles 4 miles
Heading south again, down to the junction, turn right and heading towards Preston Brook, but first get rid of the rubbish and top up with water.
Fri, 23 Jul 2010 2 miles
After spending the night just outside Bollington we moved on to Lymm today. Both days were very uneventful but there are a lot more boats, both moored up and travelling, than we have seen for a long time. It is becoming harder to find places for all of us to moor together, particularly where there aren't other boats.
Very pleasant evening sitting on the tow path chatting and putting the world to rights.
Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10 miles
Today we headed towards the Trent and Mersey, we nearly made it, I thought the T & M started at the junction at Preston Brook but it actually starts a bit south of that. Travelling on the Bridgewater was very slow, there are so many moored boats, we were only averaging about 2mph.
Tue, 27 Jul 2010 5½ miles 1 lock 3 tunnels
After several weeks on broad canals and rivers the Trent and Mersey seems very narrow. When the canals were built with locks that were only seven feet wide the canal builders didn't see much point in making the canals any wider than was necessary to allow two seven foot boats to pass each other. The bridges are designed to allow a seven foot wide boat to pass through, so it all feels a bit narrow.
We passed through three tunnels today, the first, longest one was reasonably straight, the second, shortest one had a bit of a kink in it and the third looks like it was dug by an inebriated worm. My theory is that the longest was dug first and that by the time they got to the third the engineer said to the navies 'OK lads, you know what you are doing, I'll leave you to get on with it!'. Kath thinks that they started on the beer and whisky supplies in celebration after completing the first and carried on drinking until the had dug the third!
Anyway, we are now moored up by the Anderton Boat Lift, this wonderful bit of engineering takes boats from the Trent and Mersey Canal and the River Weaver, a distance of fifty feet. We are going to try it tomorrow.
Wed, 28 Jul 2010 4½ miles 2 locks 1 boat lift
Had a bit of a problem getting Foxy Lady through the lift. The operators wanted it to have a license of it's own, but after a little discussion and a couple of emails I managed to convince them that Foxy Lady is a tender and therefore does not need a separate license.
Down the lift, which really is impressive and along the Weaver. We decided that the Weaver is wide enough to double breast, so with Almyne and Destiny strapped together once again I was free to look around and do some boat work while we were travelling.
The locks are something else, big enough to get 18 full size narrow boats in at one time! The two of us looked lost in there on our own.
Fortunately they are keeper operated so we had little or no work to do. Mind you, they do only operate at set times. While we were waiting for the first lock I got chatting to the lock keeper and he was looking for a home for a terrapin. I wandered back to Kath and discussed it with her and we decided to give it a home. Back to the lock keeper who introduced us to the person giving it away, so now we have two dogs, three cats, six kittens, two guinea pigs, one terrapin and two children on board. No wonder it's noisy!
Oh, the terrapin came with an ovarium to keep it in as well.
Moored up at Vale Royal Cut and spent a wonderful evening just chillin'.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 2½ miles
Motored into Winsford and moored up at the pub for the evening - what more can I say.
Sat, 31 Jul 2010 7 miles 2 locks 1 boat lift
Back to the boat lift.
At one lock we shared it with nine other boats and there was still loads of room.
I'm off doing stuff elsewhere, so Belynda is taking Almyne for a drive, no locks though.
Mon, 5 Jul 2010 10 miles 4 locks 9 swing bridges
Set off today in the sunshine, it soon got a bit windy and by the middle of the afternoon it was blowing up quite hard.
Moored up just after four, because the water shortage!
The water shortage restrictions means that each flight of locks is only available between 10 am and noon then between 2pm and 4pm. Although we arrived before noon we missed the morning slot because there was a queue of boats waiting to go up the flight. We were the second pair of boats to go up in the afternoon and got part way up the flight only to be told 'you won't complete the flight by four, you'll have to moor up'.
So that is just what we did, and had dinner.
After dinner I was sat on the after deck and heard a shrill whistling, or peeping. It was, as I had thought, a curlew, in fact a pair of them flying around the field adjacent to us.
Lez has a very good camera and she tried to take some pictures of them. If they come out I will try to get copies from her.
That was the highlight of the day.
Tue, 6 Jul 2010 7 miles and 11 locks
canal on the section into Barnodswick follows the contours of the hills, which when you are this high up, makes for a tortuous route, twisting and turning. At one point I could look round and see Lez and Ray to one side of me travelling in the opposite direction, even though they were about 3/4 of a mile behind me round the bends.
The lock keepers today were telling us that unless there is a substantial amount of rain the Leeds and Liverpool could be closed to navigation in just over two weeks. We found out today that the Rochdale Canal is closed at Sowerby bridge due to the lack of water. Generally it was a good day and we still hope to make it to Wigan on Sunday. The other canals don't seem to be suffering as much with water shortages.
Wed, 7 Jul 2010 17½ miles 7 locks 2 tunnels
Set out this morning at about eight after a breakfast of peanut butter and marmalade on toast.
Starting at Barnoldswick, completed a goodly portion of the journey towards Wigan, where we are going to meet up with Kathy.
Finished off at four forty-five just past bridge 117, which is between Hapton and Clayton le Moors.
Quite close to the motorway, but I will just take my hearing aids out tonight.
Plan is to set off by eight in the morning again.
Forecast said the occasional shower, my foot. It rained on and off for most of the day, sometimes as heavy as it was when I lived in the caravan at Box Hill.
Changed out of wet clothes twice so I will probably get the fire going to dry them all off.
Fortunately it is not cold.
By the time we were moored up the rain had stopped and the sun was trying to peek through, so hopefully it will be better tomorrow.
Thu, 8 Jul 2010 16 miles 6 locks 2 swing bridges
Set out this morning at eight again, after breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast.
Travelled till noon, when we got to Blackburn, where we took time out to go shopping. I got some biscuits and eggs, oh and a fresh loaf of bread.
Nearly missed the mooring point. Went past it and then tried to reverse back to it but the wind caught me and threw me all over the cut.
I ended up turning around, going back a bit and then turning around again to moor up alongside Morgan le Fay.
Set off again at half two and did six locks and another 4½ miles. Mostly dry with the odd bit of drizzle and the occasional gust of wind.
Not much of note. so I will leave it there
Fri, 9 Jul 2010 15 3/4 miles 6 locks 4 swingbridges
Has anybody noticed just how many swing bridges there are on the Leeds and Liverpool canal? We seem to do several every day and although they are not that much in the way of hard work, there are an awful lot of them, which inevitably slows us down.
After stocking up at the supermarket we carried on to Blackburn Locks only to find them padlocked. Last entry is supposed to be 4pm and this was at 3 pm. Lez went off down the flight on foot in search of a lock keeper while I phoned BW. Lez returned after finding a lock keeper, who also seemed confused about the restrictions, however he did come and unlock the gates for us so we could carry on.
Now we are back in urban sprawl the canal is exhibiting the array of bottles, cans, bikes and supermarket trollies that I have come to expect. I can now recognise trollies from all the major supermarkets and DIY store by an eight inch portion of their handle protruding above the surface.
We emerged from the suburbs of Blackburn and moored up near an old paper mill with acres of woodland surrounding it. Only about 20 lock miles to the top of Wigan Flight now, so we should we down the flight on Saturday, water levels permitting. With the lack of rain in the area there are threats of closing the Leeds and Liverpool, and even though it has been raining I doubt it has made any impact on the water levels.
I just hope we can get to Wigan before it does get closed.
Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14 3/4 miles 7 locks
We have made it! We are now sat at the top of Wigan Flight, we might be able to go down tomorrow but there is one boat in front of us waiting to go down so if BW are only allowing one passage per day we will have to wait until Sunday.
I tried out my bus pass and visited with Kath
for the night.Sun, 11 Jul 2010 4 ¼ miles 23 locks
Made it back to Almyne and Morgana le Fay nice and early. There was no problem with BW letting three boats down so John and Jackie took the lead and we all set off. It was warm but not too hot thankfully and with John on his boat and Ray taking Morgana and Almyne that left Jackie, Lez and I to do the lock wheeling, with a bit of help from BW.
It seemed to be a well maintained flight, some of the paddles were a bit stiff but not many. Our only problem was one we knew about before we started. One lock halfway down has a gate that doesn't open, so we had to separate the boats and take them out one at a time. We made good time and got down through the 21 locks in less than five hours. We turned the corner onto the Leigh Branch, down through the Poolstock Locks and met Kath
who had brought Destiny up to meet us. Then we headed back to Ince Moss to moor up.Lez and Ray spent the evening playing with their kittens, the ones that they are having from Kath.
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 6½ miles 1 swing bridge
British Waterways have announced that the Leeds and Liverpool Canal will be closed from the 2nd August between Lock 30 (near Gargrave) and Lock 85 ( the bottom of Wigan Flight). That is the stretch we did last week. The rest of the network just seems to have cautions about reduced water levels.
Today we moved on from Ince Moss to Astley Green. As we were getting ready to leave we saw 6 or 7 black mink playing on the opposite bank. It wasn't a very long journey, no locks and just one swing bridge. We did have a bit of rain on the way, and then a thunderstorm while we were at the pub but I don't think that was enough to make a difference to the levels in the reservoirs. It did give us an excuse to stay for another pint though!
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 1 ¼ miles
As you will have noticed we haven't moved very far. The weather has been lousy, I know we need the rain but couldn't it rain for half the day and be nice the other half instead of 15 minutes rain, 15 minutes dry, on and off all day.
Moved up to Worsley, not very far but it meant we could all fuel up at the boatyard on the way. The canal hereÊisÊorange, apparently it is due to iron compounds dissolved in the water. At the DelphÊin WorsleyÊthere is the entrance to the old underground canal network which linked the Duke of Bridgewater's mines. There were over fifty miles of underground canals but they are all closed off now.
Sun, 18 Jul 2010 8 ¼ miles
And in to Castle Quay, just a mile from the beginning of the Rochdale canal where we were two months ago.
We set off around lunch time with the usual Manchester weather, drizzle, dry, rain, dry for nearly 3 hours.
Wed, 21 Jul 2010 1 mile 9 locks 1 mile 9 locks
Went up into Manchester to complete the nine locks on this stretch of the system that I haven't done yet, and then back again.
Thu, 22 Jul 2010 6 3/4 miles 4 miles
Heading south again, down to the junction, turn right and heading towards Preston Brook, but first get rid of the rubbish and top up with water.
Fri, 23 Jul 2010 2 miles
After spending the night just outside Bollington we moved on to Lymm today. Both days were very uneventful but there are a lot more boats, both moored up and travelling, than we have seen for a long time. It is becoming harder to find places for all of us to moor together, particularly where there aren't other boats.
Very pleasant evening sitting on the tow path chatting and putting the world to rights.
Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10 miles
Today we headed towards the Trent and Mersey, we nearly made it, I thought the T & M started at the junction at Preston Brook but it actually starts a bit south of that. Travelling on the Bridgewater was very slow, there are so many moored boats, we were only averaging about 2mph.
Tue, 27 Jul 2010 5½ miles 1 lock 3 tunnels
After several weeks on broad canals and rivers the Trent and Mersey seems very narrow. When the canals were built with locks that were only seven feet wide the canal builders didn't see much point in making the canals any wider than was necessary to allow two seven foot boats to pass each other. The bridges are designed to allow a seven foot wide boat to pass through, so it all feels a bit narrow.
We passed through three tunnels today, the first, longest one was reasonably straight, the second, shortest one had a bit of a kink in it and the third looks like it was dug by an inebriated worm. My theory is that the longest was dug first and that by the time they got to the third the engineer said to the navies 'OK lads, you know what you are doing, I'll leave you to get on with it!'. Kath
thinks that they started on the beer and whisky supplies in celebration after completing the first and carried on drinking until the had dug the third!Anyway, we are now moored up by the Anderton Boat Lift, this wonderful bit of engineering takes boats from the Trent and Mersey Canal and the River Weaver, a distance of fifty feet. We are going to try it tomorrow.
Wed, 28 Jul 2010 4½ miles 2 locks 1 boat lift
Had a bit of a problem getting Foxy Lady through the lift. The operators wanted it to have a license of it's own, but after a little discussion and a couple of emails I managed to convince them that Foxy Lady is a tender and therefore does not need a separate license.
Down the lift, which really is impressive and along the Weaver. We decided that the Weaver is wide enough to double breast, so with Almyne and Destiny strapped together once again I was free to look around and do some boat work while we were travelling.
The locks are something else, big enough to get 18 full size narrow boats in at one time! The two of us looked lost in there on our own.
Fortunately they are keeper operated so we had little or no work to do. Mind you, they do only operate at set times. While we were waiting for the first lock I got chatting to the lock keeper and he was looking for a home for a terrapin. I wandered back to Kath
and discussed it with her and we decided to give it a home. Back to the lock keeper who introduced us to the person giving it away, so now we have two dogs, three cats, six kittens, two guinea pigs, one terrapin and two children on board. No wonder it's noisy!Oh, the terrapin came with an ovarium to keep it in as well.
Moored up at Vale Royal Cut and spent a wonderful evening just chillin'.
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 2½ miles
Motored into Winsford and moored up at the pub for the evening - what more can I say.
Sat, 31 Jul 2010 7 miles 2 locks 1 boat lift
Back to the boat lift.
At one lock we shared it with nine other boats and there was still loads of room.
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