Friday 24 May
Our intention today was to boat the rest of the
Weaver, so we left our mooring around 9.00, went back the way we had come
yesterday, passing the Anderton lift and then continued on to the part of the
river we hadn’t yet explored. The wonderful lock keepers at Hunts Lock and Vale
Royal Lock worked us through with great cheerfulness. There were a few more
narrowboats on the move including Celtic Kiwi which we passed twice today as we
each made our way up and down the river.
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| Hunts Lock |
Most of the bridges on this stretch are high, but there is one very low one. We removed our chimney and trusted that we'd be OK.
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| A low bridge. |
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| Steve ducks down. |
There are some beautiful sections
around Vale Royal, and then Meadowbank Rock Salt Mine appears. There is an
awful lot of rock salt piled up!
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| A pretty bit of river. |
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| Meadowbank Rocksalt Mine |
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| A lot of rocksalt. |
Winsford is the end of navigable water for narrowboats,
though some do venture out onto Winsford Flash and risk running aground. We
kept safe and moored in Winsford Marina – not really a marina, just an inlet
where you can moor.
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| View towards Winsford Flash |
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| Winford Marina and Picnic Site |
Having said that, the picnic area around the marina was the
most attractive thing we saw in Winsford. We walked up High Street which was
mainly closed fast food outlets. It would seem that improving the A54 made the
High Street a dead end at both ends, with access to the A54 only in the middle.
We decided not to bother exploring further (sorry, Winsford!)
We had lunch and then set off on our way back,
through Vale Royal and Hunts locks again as far as Northwich where we moored in
Northwich Quay Marina just after 3.00. We are going home for the weekend so we
will leave the boat in this safe mooring while we are away.
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| Northwich Quay Marina |
We did a little shopping at the very convenient
Waitrose next to the marina and then went for a walk around Northwich which
looks a much more prosperous town than Winsford with several independent shops.
We had a curry at the Bombay Quay – again very
convenient to the marina.
The weather today was not as sunny as yesterday,
but still dry and reasonably warm.
Locks 4 Miles 12.75 Total Locks 148 Total Miles 235.50
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