Monday 20 May
We were through Marsh Lock promptly at 8.30 and out
on to the Manchester Ship Canal.
Entering Marsh Lock |
We made good progress and turned in to
Ellesmere Bottom Lock soon after 10.00. Cheshire West and Chester had organised
the opening of the swing bridge over the lock and the man who opened it helped
with the lock as well.
By now the early morning cloud had mainly cleared
and we had long warm, sunny spells for the rest of the day. We had lunch on the
move as we would like to do a good distance today.
We again had help at the Northgate Staircase Locks
- well, more than help actually. The volunteer lock keeper did all the work for
us!
As we continued through Chester, we found ourselves
behind “L’eau T Cuisine”, a trip boat with dining facilities. We followed it
to Hoole Lane Lock – as L’eau is a wide beam boat, it filled the lock and so we
had to wait until it had gone through. I went up to help with gates and the
crew explained that they were only going a little way further on and would be
coming back, so we could leave the top gates open.
L'eau T Cuisine |
We did four more locks (Chemistry, Tarvin,
Greenfield and Christleton), all of which were set ready for us, but as we are
now going uphill and they are all broad locks, Stephen had to work hard to hold
our boat steady as the lock filled.
We moored outside The Cheshire Cat at Christleton
at 4.20. Steve by this time was feeling a bit off-colour, but we decided to go into
the Cheshire Cat and take advantage of their “early bird” meal offer. Once he
had something to eat and, possibly more importantly, drunk several glasses of
cold water, he began to feel better, and a short lie down on the bed when we got
back to the boat, completed the recovery.
Locks 12 Miles 18.75 Total Locks 130
Total Miles 187.00
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