Wednesday 11th April 2012 (Easter Week)
Macclesfield Canal Bridge 59 to Hall Green
We had a lay in today, drive plate stress had sort of mentally knackered us over the past couple of days. As I lay on our warm bed I could hear the rain on the roof, oh, well it might be like yesterday & have nice long sunny spells in between the rain!
We had porridge for breakfast, did some cleaning & tidying then set off for Bosley Locks, they were only about a mile further on & by the time we got there the sun was shining. We had a dilemma because we had lost time on Easter Monday, if we went up the Bosley flight we would basically have to come straight back down again either today or tomorrow morning & 12 Locks would mean quite alot of gear changing, so we decided to get the best of the situation & do the first lock No12 & use the winding hole to turn around, then moor at the bottom & have a walk up the flight in the sunshine.
Turned around, back through lock 12 & moored a few yards past the lock mooring, removed one layer of fleece as it was beautiful but kept the macs.
The towpath was very muddy & slippery due to all the rain over the past week. I thought I would photograph each lock as we walked, We carried on up to No4 then the heavens opened & I mean OPENED! The cloud got lower, the wind picked up & the sky got darker, not a glimmer of brightness or blue sky as far as you could see. We carried on up to Lock 2, watched three lots of miserable boaters make their way through the locks, Caley our spaniel was caked in mud & we were absolutely soaked so we made our way back down
If you look carefully you can see the rain “sheeting down” in the slideshow.
We walked back to the boat, dried off ourselves & the dog & made lunch! Then suddenly the sun came out so we set off again, disappointed that we had to do Bosley flight by foot but there is always next time when we will have more time.
On the way back we spotted a beautiful house as we looked down from the canal.
We came across a group of canoeists.
We admired the church spire towering over the town of Astbury.
We had come as far as Congleton last year in the summer but needed to turn around so we chose the first winding hole on the map after Congleton, what a fiasco we had with our new longer nb & we thought we were so inexperienced as we made such a meal of a turn, however this year we understood why. That stretch of canal has been drastically cut back & the reeds cleared back, now you can actually see the winding hole which last year was just a mass of thick reeds so you could not even see the shape of the hole! well done BW that complete stretch is much improved.
The day turned out to be mainly sunny & quite a bit warmer than of late. We carried on along this beautifully peaceful canal to Hall Green & stopped on the rather full moorings just before the stop lock. lots of other friendly boaters moored up & ready to chat. Nice end to an odd day.
The lack of locks on this stretch means that today has not rendered too much wear & tear on the new drive plate & existing gear box, tomorrow however we start to make our way down Heartbreak Hill & that’s a different story.
Today 9 miles, 4 hours, 0 locks by NB, 11 locks by foot!
nb That's D'riculous 