Wednesday 14 September 2011

Farewell Manchester!

Yesterday we left Manchester after a really enjoyable 3 weeks!
Leaving Manchester 001
Getting ready to leave Castlefield at 8am! with nb Toulouse (hidden) for the Rochdale Canal.  The wind had dropped and the sun was starting to come out.
Luckily, as we had 27 locks ahead of us, we had help from nb Toulouse’s friends Graham and Lorna who joined us all for the day.
Leaving Manchester 002
Two of this years’ Crick show boats slip through the Rochdale 9 locks by Whitworth Street.
Leaving Manchester 010
Travelling in between the apartments and under the hotels.
Leaving Manchester 011
Continuing through the locks along Canal Street.
Leaving Manchester 012
Doug, Janet and Graham stopping for a coffee in Canal Street, and enjoying the sunshine.
Leaving Manchester 016
Doug travelling on the front of “Chance” as there is no towpath for some of the way in Canal Street so you have to access the locks from the boat .
Leaving Manchester 020
‘Chance’ and ‘Toulouse’ under the Malmaison Hotel and nearing the end of the Rochdale 9.
Leaving Manchester 025
A good way up the Ashton Flight of 18 locks  - ‘Toulouse’, with Gerald steering, passing the entrance to the old Stockport Branch between locks 10 and 11.
We had a really good passage through,what can be, a fairly tough days’ work thanks to massive efforts from Janet, Lorna, Graham and Doug who worked all the locks and Janet, who provided a fabulous lunch eaten on the hoof.  Gerald and James just steered the boats! – trying hard to avoid a lot of  debris under the water and, on more than one occasion, getting down in the weed hatch to remove all sorts of rubbish from the propellers.  Not a clean canal but it could have been worse – last time we did this stretch on ‘Spirit’ Doug had to remove a bed from the entrance to one of the locks!
Anyway, we have now turned right at Portland Basin and on to the Peak Forest Canal – mooring up for the night as soon as a good spot presented itself.  With great thanks to Janet and Doug all six of us plus Oscar and Graham and Lorna’s dog Billy had a brilliant meal on board ‘Chance’ thanks to Waitrose’s 2 meals for £10 deal!!
12 miles and 27 locks in 8 hours!

2 comments:

  1. Hiya

    Very impressive timing! It took us about 11 hours when we did it, but all the locks were against us on the Ashton. The Peak was shallow when we were up there and the Macc was even worse so have fun, we have just got back on the Staffs & Worc.

    Take care

    Ali & John x

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  2. Hi Ali and John, I think we were just very well organised with 2 boats and 6 adults! Finding it still very shallow, and we always seem to be hitting items under the water! Doug and James x

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