9 October 2023

We left our mooring outside the Broughton Arms at Rode Heath knowing we had a big morning of lock work. We had been lulled into a false sense of laziness over the first few days, but today was going to really test the crew.

Judi took over Captain’s duties under the watchful eye of Capt’n John, while Grahame and I took to the windlasses.

It was a busy day! All in all, Team Ellie negotiated 22 Locks and we walked over 19000 Steps.

We prepared the locks and opened the gates to allow Ellie in …

.. And we closed the gates behind her and let the water out.

We opened the front gates to allow Ellie leave and once again closed them behind her.

We repeated this process many times today.

In the meantime, the countryside was lovely. There were lots of sheep, cows, and even lamas in farmyards to see and smell. (And boy, do they smell!!! )

There were lots of swans and their cygnets to say hello to…..

…. And some nice canal side homes to admire.

Passing under the M6 motorway was a quite strange sight. Two busy transport systems separated by over a 150 years of progress!

We had our fingers crossed that once we reached the town of Middlewich, we would receive good news that the lock on the Middlewich Branch (the one we needed to take) had been repaired and we could head towards Wales as planned.

We moored outside the Kings Lock Pub and walked to the junction of the two canals hoping to hear some good news straight from the source. Alas, two locks up we came across this sorry sight….

It was recommended that we join the Canal River Trust, the overseeing body of the whole canal network, in order to receive email updates on the repair work. But so far the news was not good. The lock wouldn’t be operational til tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.

We had two choices: either sit around twiddling our thumbs or continue along the Trent and Mersey to the Anderton Lift. We decided on the latter and undertook negotiating the last three locks of the day.

Due to the lock closure there was quite a bottle neck of boats, probably filled with travellers having to make the same decision as us. Some were willing to wait it out and others like us, were looking to keep moving. As a result we had to join a queue to descend these last three locks. There was also a queue of boats wanting to come up the remaining three locks (something we hadn’t had to deal with all day). This meant one boat down, one boat up, one boat down, one boat up etc. It was a long slow process. To add to the time delay, was the fact that these locks were situated on a sharp corner with lots of trees making it was difficult to see what was happening further down. We had to rely on those down around the corner to pass messages on up the line and vice versa. To summarise…. It was mayhem.

By the time we finally moored for the day we were exhausted and in dire need of sustenance. Thank goodness for “The Big Lock” Hotel

The Euchre game was reconvened. Tonight the Marjoribanks’s took on the Partland’s. Sadly I was not on the winning team. Again!!

The cumulative score now stands at John 2, Judi 1, Grahame 1 and Jenny 0