Blackpool Blast!

It’s been about 4 or 5 years since we last visited Blackpool so, on Friday (5th Aug), we got into our hire car and headed northwards for an overnight stay.

Our approach, and first impressions of Blackpool, was that things have been vastly improved since our last (and, as always, very enjoyable) visit. First impressions were to continue and the town and sea front really have been cleaned up. To us anyway Blackpool has really started to get its act together.

The tower always looks impressive but the building at its base has been improved hugely by taking down some awful advertising banners that ruined the look of the magnificent frontage on our last visit. The seafront seems to be spotlessly clean and the hotels have done their bit by undertaking some very nice repainting. Blackpool has had a bad press in the past, and probably rightly so, but we have to give praise where it’s due.

Before ‘painting the town red’ we had a great Italian meal at “Tiramisu” thanks to the recommendation of our friend Paul who we were staying with overnight at his newly recently opened hotel. Claudio, the charming and very hard working owner, when he heard that Paul had suggested we eat there, filled our empty wine glasses up again free gratis!

The reason for our visit to Blackpool was, of course, to visit the famous “Funny Girls” show bar for the evening. New friends, Gary and Scott (who we recently bumped into along the canal at Botany Bay) decided to motor up from their home and join us for the evening.

The star of the show – Miss Betty “Legs” Diamond has recently returned to “Funny Girls” from her own show bar in Newcastle.

You can’t just visit “Funny Girls” once – you have to go back again and again. It’s the best, and cheapest entertainment on the the planet and “Betty Legs” is one of the most talented and funny performers around. ALL the performers, DJ  and bar staff are men it needs to be said! – and here are some pics of the six or seven cabarets(we lost count!) we enjoyed during the evening :

Betty’s take on “Kinky Boots”.

This is “Zoe”, the inimitable and exuberant, DJ just posing for photos (as she does!)

This is “Knocksie” (wonder why?), one of the bar staff who looked after our needs!

Another couple of ‘likely lads’ who added enormously to our evening were Scott and Dean (yes, another Scott, just to make life complicated!) up from Manchester for the weekend.

Scott used to be an entertainer in a holiday camp and he was just the sort of person needed to ……….

……. get people into the party mood! Mind you, he didn’t need to encourage Doug very much!

   Back to more cabaret – this one being a take-off of Phantom of the Opera.

“Betty Legs”, on the right, giving us a taste of the spectacular Busby Berkley style finale to come:-

It was a spectacular half hour finish to a brilliant evening at “Funny Girls” for us. We also have to thank Scott and Gary and Scott and Dean for their company and for being such fun as well. Great to catch up with S and G and terrific to meet S and D for the first time – keep in touch guys!

We returned back home to “Chance” on Saturday morning and, on returning the car to Enterprise at Skelmersdale James, the branch manager, gave us a little gift as a ‘thank you’ for using them and the other branches so much! What a lovely thing to do – they really do care about their customers.

Back aboard and, after getting some domesticities out of the way and having 40 winks (we didn’t get to sleep until 3:30 in the morning!) we took an hours’ cruise along the cut in glorious sunshine. Having passed through Lydiate and Maghull, where the residents pay great attention to their houses and gardens, (hopefully we’ll remember to take pics on the return journey!) we were out into the countryside and communing with nature in its full summer stride ……..

……. and witnessing ‘old’ England at it’s best!

On either side of us the water lilies have spread themselves so that we now have just a central channel down which we make our way.

Finally we moored up just after bridge 11, not being able to go much further until swing bridge 9 is opened for us by CRT between 9:30 and 10:30 in the morning. We then start our ‘assisted passage’ into Liverpool.

Tomorrow will see the last leg of our 127 mile trip from Leeds and ending in Liverpool. It’s the first time we’ve taken “Chance” into the city and all reports suggest this last leg will be very special. What is also special, and totally unplanned, is that we have made this delightful transit of the Leeds and Liverpool canal during it’s 200th anniversary (1816 – 2016). What a treat!

High winds, an ‘old’ friend and “Another Place”

We slipped our moorings at Burscough on Wednesday morning with strong winds hitting us head on. Just up the cut was our first swing bridge of the day which happened to be “out of order”! Managing to get “Chance” safely roped against the wind on the moorings outside ‘The Slipway’ pub we phoned CRT who said someone would be with us in 5 minutes. Joy-of-joys our saving grace appeared in only 3 minutes. “Eh lad, will sun git the’ bridge fettled” he said – and he did. What we didn’t realise, when we made the call, was that the people in the boat on the other side of the bridge had already phoned CRT an hour before! Oh dear!

With the swing bridge “fettled” we were on our way and at bridge 25 we came across the “Halsall Navvy”, a half buried sculpture commemorating the cutting of the ‘first sod’ to begin the Leeds and Liverpool canal construction on 5th November 1770. What an amazing fact and what history we enjoy - 246 years ago!

Further down the cut, with the wind roaring in our faces, (just look at the trees!) is Downholland Farm. If the age of the canal isn’t enough this lovely building is another 40 years older at 290 years! It’s mullioned windows are fabulous.

Wind is the real enemy of the canal boater but, to turn a negative into a positive, we stopped for some lunch and put the washing out to dry. Having to anchor the whirligig with a guy rope was absolutely necessary but it was all dry in an hour and we were on our way again.

It’s so nice to occasionally have a towpath photo of “Chance” in full sail. This was in a nice quiet cutting and sheltered from the wind.

Here’s a nice photo of the wind! The windage on a 60 foot narrow boat can be terrific in high winds – it’s not the cruising that’s difficult it’s the stopping!

We moored up mid afternoon just short of bridge 17a at Lydiate. Fortuitously there were some robust iron bollards just waiting for our ropes! We hunkered down for a while and watched the waves on the water and then went for a walk around the village, stopping at the “New Running Horses” for an evening meal, before walking back down the towpath to our mooring for the night. 

On Thursday morning we moved a smidgen up the canal to the Mersey Motor Boat Club moorings where Debbie (Nb Tickety Boo), whose been a blog reader (and long distance friend) for quite some time, had arranged a mooring for us for a couple of nights. Our Lumix camera, which had been pitched into the canal when James last fell in (!), has been recovering over the last week or so and now can produce this quality of photo. Not good but not bad either considering!

We took delivery of another hire car from good old Enterprise and, after mooring “Chance” up at MMBC and meeting the delightful Debbie in person for the first time, we took a drive up to Southport. The popular Victorian seaside town has seen an awful lot of change over the years but there is still some very nice architecture to be had.

A walk over the rather swish Maritime Way Bridge …….

 

……. took us to the sea front. This part of the country is known for its very flat and open coastal features and, when the tide is out, there’s miles of sand (and grass!) and, to see the sea, you need binoculars!

Down the coast from Southport is Crosby with similar coastal features but, this time, it’ home to the famous ‘sculpture’ by Sir Anthony Gormley – “Another Place”. As the tide recedes, and it does so at an alarming rate, 100 cast iron human figures appear.

It’s quite surreal to watch these human shapes seemingly rise from the depths.

They stand facing the horizon in ‘ silent speculation’ and cover an area of beach 2 miles long and stretch over 1/2 mile out to sea.

Each figure weighs 650 kilograms and are made from casts of the artist own body.

Visiting this work of art has been on our bucket list for a while now and, as we’re so close by canal, it’s been an ideal opportunity to experience this famous sight. It was also a great treat to meet Debbie as well and we shall be seeing more of her and partner Danny in the near future. Thanks so much for organising the mooring for us Debbie!

Tranquillity and the “Wigan 21”

Leaving our Saturday night mooring we continued along the very tranquil section of canal, into which we’d rather suddenly emerged, after leaving industrial Blackburn.

Perhaps not so strangely but James felt drawn to take this photo showing bridge 89 as it felt so perfect a scene of the English countryside we all imagine it. As it happens,we discover, after the taking the pic, that our Pearson’s canal guide uses the exact same photo for the same reasons. 

Can’t remember which bridge and lock this is but it seems a good example of some of the “tighter” situations we sometimes find ourselves in!

This canal being virgin territory for us, we were advised that ‘Botany Bay’ was a must to stop for and a good overnight mooring to boot. This typical, but still wonderful, restored mill is home to a huge range of outlets. We were in buoyant mood as we moored up but quickly became aware that a boat had been pulled off it’s pins and was across the canal about 50 yards ahead. Onlookers from the the busy ‘Botany Bay’ were bemused as to why it was there and wondering “who was going to do something about it?” Well we did do something about it, which took 5 minutes, and then we took a look inside the huge mill outlet – say no more, that took 5 minutes as well!! However, the moorings were good and we spent a sunny afternoon with wine and nibbles on the back deck followed by a quiet evening and even quieter night. 

Monday morning saw us on an early start (7 o’ clock), purely because we woke early, and by 9 o’ clock we were at the top of the Wigan flight of 21 locks. This is a photo of the top lock and ………..

……… this is us having completed the “Wigan 21”! The environment was pleasant all the way down, some of the bottom lock gates are very heavy and you just have to pace yourself for the long haul. We worked the locks alone and it took us a tedious 5+ hours, due entirely to the two boat crews in front of us. You don’t meet a fool for quite a while then four come along at once! But that’s life!

With a total of 22 locks behind us we were back on familiar territory again, albeit five years ago since we were in Wigan. We managed to squeeze in to the, now defunct, CRT secure moorings with just our bow encroaching on “Private Property – no mooring”. CRT, we are informed, have moved a little further down.

A walk into the town centre eventually found the post box we needed to post a birthday card (sorry it’s a day late Neil!). There are still a few interesting buildings to be enjoyed – the church is a lovely old lump but well hemmed in by other buildings so it’s unable to show off it’s full glory.
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On Tuesday morning, after taking advantage of the closeness of the water tap to take on 1/2 ton or so of fresh water, we headed westward once more. Our first lock was just a stone’s throw from the mooring and here we are, waiting for yet another boater (who didn’t know a windlass from a bull’s foot!) to come through the lock. Doug was down at the lock trying to help but it all fell on ‘stony ground’! [Your could sometimes sell tickets for the entertainment value – Teehee]  

As we headed out of town we passed the famous “Wigan Pier” which is looking a little shabby these days.

A bit further on from where James took this pic a couple of ladies walking the towpath called out “is that a wonderful life?” Well, a picture paints a thousand words!

Just before Dean Lock the canal is crossed by the Wigan-Southport railway line and the Preston section of the M6 which, for a short while, broke the tranquillity we’d got used to.

Three transport systems in very quick succession – canal, railway and motorway and the residents of this superbly renovated house obviously don’t mind any of them.

After another lock and a couple of swing bridges, and following closely the River Douglas, we passed through pretty little Parbold. The village has many interesting features which we hope to take a closer look at on our return journey but this time we continued on to Burscough for the shops and a mooring for the night.