New Islington Marina

It was Roger's turn to work the locks today while I drove. We would have liked to share the locks, and the work, with another boat as we'd done a couple of weeks ago when we came down the Rochdale 9 with David on Wye Knot 2 but there was no-one about when we set off this morning.

As usual the water was rushing over the gates at lock 92 but we weren't in any rush so took our time and went up slowly.

I like retracing our steps over sections of canal and lock flights as the view's different and you see things you didn't spot when going the other way. These arches under the railway bridge weren't as noticeable last time but are quite a beautiful piece of engineering architecture.

Deansgate is one of the main shopping streets in Manchester and the traffic is always very busy. It's one of the nice things about being on the boat that you can just go underneath the traffic jams with a smug smile on your face.

This was another tunnel under the shops.

The water jet coming into the canal from the right bank is really powerful and I'd remembered it from last time, so I stayed back until Roger had the lock gate open and then went in on full power to avoid being pushed into the bridge side.

Once up the Rochdale 9 we made a detour up 2 more locks on the Rochdale Canal and turned into New Islington Marina.  This is the "famous" new bridge that has reputably cost £4 million.

It has writing on it's underside that can only be read as a reflection in the water.  It's supposed to read "cast no shadow" but as it's always windy here and the canal is seldom calm enough to see any reflection it seems a huge waste of money to me.

The marina is now fully occupied and even the visitor moorings were full, but Ben the mooring warden/park keeper found us a spot right outside the Boaters Hut which houses the laundry and shower. It's only for one night and we'll carry on again tomorrow.

This family of swans arrived almost as soon as we'd moored up. They were very persistent and pecked at the boat until I gave in and fed them. Once they'd had their fill of swan pellets they left us and went to pester another boat.

A walk up to the new marina

A couple of weeks ago a new marina was opened in Manchester, in the area which used to be known as Ancoats but which is being re-branded as New Islington. As we have no plans of taking our boat up that way in the near future we decided to walk up the towpath from Castlefield and have a look.
We started at Lock 92 which is beside the famous Dukes 92 and Albert’s Shed pub/restaurants. There are no bye-washes on this stretch of canal so the water level is always slightly higher than the lock gates which make them difficult to open.

Once you’ve cleared Lock 92 you pass through Deansgate Tunnel which is illuminated by colour changing lights and takes you underneath Deansgate to Lock 91 which again has an amazing waterfall flowing over the gates.

This then brings you up next to the area known as Deansgate Locks. The Comedy Store and several bars and restaurants overlook the canal and at weekends it’s a very busy area.

You can walk along the towpath as far as Canal Street where it disappears so you have to leave the canal and walk along the road between locks.  Canal Street is the ‘Gay’ area of Manchester and a few years ago, following a couple of deaths when drunks fell into the canal, they installed new railings all along the street.

Whilst it seems a bit excessive,  it actually adds to the ambience of the area as many of the bars have now installed seating areas outside overlooking the canal. At one time Canal Street was quite an intimidating place but in recent years it’s cleaned up it’s image tremendously and during the day it’s a nice, safe and friendly place to walk through. I can imagine it’s a bit different on a Saturday night though.

To reach Lock 85 you pass through another tunnel under the main road and office blocks above.

This used to be the most notorious of the locks on this section of the canal as years ago it was frequented by ‘rent boys’ and drug dealers. Again it’s quite different these days.  The lock area is fully illuminated and covered by CCTV cameras.

The dark corners where the undesirables used to congregate have all been filled in, the lock itself looks more like an indoor swimming pool and there’s a brightly painted mural alongside.

We carried on up the canal passing derelict properties and beautifully restored ones too.

The new marina might have been opened to boats for a couple of weeks but it still looks like a building site. Having looked at it online before we went I was expecting more and was quite disappointed.

We could only look through the very considerable railings as only moorers are allowed inside and the whole place looks very grim. New Islington as an area looks like it won’t be much better than the Ancoats area it's supposed to replace. The housing they are building is awful and looks like a slum in the making. The mooring fees might be extremely cheap at £1500 a year for a 60ft boat but you won’t find us going there!

The Ashton Canal isn’t far away so we walked over for a look at some of the modern buildings they have built alongside it and then headed back to Castlefield.