Marsh Lock to Christleton

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.

Going through Ellesmere Port Middle and Top Locks took longer than it should as I didn’t notice that someone had left a top paddle open so the lock did not empty as it should. Steve eventually noticed it and once I’d closed it, we were soon on our way towards Chester.

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