26 June

It was very quiet overnight but we were surprised to find that it was 9.50pm when the last boat passed us. We understood that 6pm was the curfew time for boats travelling on the canals. We were out in the country that probably made a difference. We are often gently woken by ducks pecking at the outside of the boat. We had a leisurely start and pottered along. It was overcast most of the day, with the odd few minutes of sun, a sprinkle of rain and a light shower. The temperature hovered around 17C.

We had four wide locks and a wide flight of two locks fairly close together to operate. The first lock was an “iron” lock, which meant that it was made with sheets of heavy iron. The problem is that over the years it has been beaten around by boats bashing into it and is not as strong as it was originally. Today, you are allowed only one boat in the lock instead of two. After that lock, we teamed up with JT1, a 58' boat and went through all the other locks together including the Banbury set of two locks with three sets of gates and the lock operators (the two females in this case) had to work on the bottom lock and then race up to the top one, open up the paddles to start it filling and then race down to the bottom lock ready to fight the gates open when it had emptied and the two boats could enter. It made life easier for all of us and saved time and water because we didn't have to empty a lock for a boat.

The people on the JT1 had it built to their design and have been living on it for a year and are planning to spend about three or four years going around the UK and then go onto the continent. They reckon they will either ship it on the back of a transporter to Europe or buy a bigger canal boat over there. Apparently the standard size of a canal boat on the Continent is 16' wide and 100' and are mainly recycled holiday and hotel boats. That's just over five times the space that we have on the little Reed Bunting and over 25 times the space we had in our camper van.

It was a pleasant enough ride as we are slightly ahead of schedule so we stopped for lunch and relaxed for about an hour or so. While having lunch we were pleased to see two people cutting the grass on the towpath with a weed eater and a ride on mower. We turned off the canal to Chester and headed to Middlewich. There's lots and lots of moored boats so progress is very slow. We stopped just before the first lock at 4.40pm and wandered over to the shop at the Venetian Marina to pickup a couple of ice creams and some other goodies. While we were eating the ice cream, the heavy squall hit, but luckily there was an umbrella to shelter under until the rain stopped.

The internet was like dial up.  Could only load a few photos out of the dozen we had chosen.

A swan family out for the day 

Lynette opening a lock gate 

There aren't many thatched houses in Cheshire 

You need Weetbix to help opening lock gates

This lock is over 15' deep

The heron was guarding the lock.

There were very few mile posts on the canal to Chester 

The little building on the left is the Train Station, but the train doesn't stop there any more.