Back in Manchester

Well we're back in Manchester again!  Apart from the usual 4 or 5 "lurkers" who have been here since last Autumn, Castlefield Basin is fairly empty.

We filled up with water at the service block on the way in.

It used to be a really dirty horrible place, full of boaters rubbish which was dumped here even though there are plenty of rubbish skips just round the corner but I'm happy to say that it's been cleaned up and this notice seems to be having the desired effect.

It's now dark around 5pm and although I miss the sunny evenings of summer, it's nice to sit by the fire and indulge my passion for crochet.  This is the latest little cardigan I've made for my granddaughter. She's now 6 months old and growing so fast she's keeping me busy. The stash of wool under the bed is dwindling rapidly, I feel a shopping trip coming on!

It's time to think about Christmas

I came across these gorgeous knitted Reindeer tree ornaments recently on one of the blogs that I follow. Aren't they wonderful!  If any of you Ladies would like to make them, you can find the instructions HERE

A busy week meeting family, friends and fellow bloggers

We've been back in Boothstown this week. We're not actually in Bridgewater Marina but are moored outside the Moorings pub as it's a nice convenient spot for visiting family and friends.

Today we had a drive out over to Middlewich to meet the new owners of one of our boats. Australians Elly and Mick bought n.b. Parisien Star to live aboard and travel round Britain for the next year.  Our boats have quite sophisticated electrical systems which we always took great pains to explain fully to new owners on hand-over day, but as Mick and Elly bought the boat second hand the brokerage had no idea how things work so they needed a bit of advice and we were quite happy to go out and meet them and explain things. We've been following Elly's blog since they first looked at Parisien Star and it was lovely to finally meet them in person. Hopefully we can meet up again next year by boat and spend a bit more time together.

Lymm

I've never been fond of marinas and don't like staying in any one place for more than a couple of days. One of the reasons is if you're running the engine for a few hours to charge the batteries then I reckon you may as well be cruising, so today we left Boothstown and cruised on to Lymm.  It's a lovely little village and is always very popular with moorers so it was no surprise to find it almost full when we arrived late afternoon but we managed to squeeze in on the end.

Even though he's only 7 I'm frequently asked if Chico is very old. People seem to think that because he's got a grey face he must be on his last legs. Maybe he needs some Grecian 2000?

A few days away

We've had a few days away visiting our daughter and baby granddaughter up in the North East but it's nice to be home.

One of the first things our daughter said to us was "Do you fancy going on a boat trip?"  It seems as if we just can't get away from boats and water.

This boat was just a bit bigger than we're used to though and the trip was out to the Farne Islands to see the Grey seals and their pups as it's calving time.

The islands are 2 - 3  miles off the Northumberland coast with the boat trips leaving from Seahouses and lasting an hour and a half.  Once we got out of the harbour the sea was quite rough and the boat rocked and lurched a lot but we found it exhilarating and stayed up at the bow for the whole trip.

This is the only inhabited island. The National Trust Rangers live here for 10 months of the year and look after the seal pups in the Autumn.

This is Longstone Lighthouse. It was made famous in 1838 when Grace Darling and her father rescued 9 survivors from the paddle steam ship Forfarshire which ran aground in stormy seas.

The Farne Islands are one of the major sanctuaries in the UK for breeding sea birds. During the nesting season there are 20 different species of breeding sea birds here, including Guillemots, Eider Ducks, Shags, Terns and over 70 thousand Puffins. (Can you tell I paid attention to the commentary?)

You can tell how many birds must nest here each year by the amount of guano pooped down the cliffs.

There are between 3 - 4 thousand grey seals at the Farne Islands with about a thousand pups born each year. Unfortunately the mortality rate is very high and around a third of the pups die.

This huge bull seal was basking in the sunshine.

The newly born pups are counted every day and marked with a coloured dye. The tiny white ones marked with green in this photo had been born the previous day.  We saw a few marked with orange that had been born that morning. They looked so vulnerable laid on the rocks.

There were plenty of seals in the water, playing in the surf and following the boat and at times weren't totally sure who was watching who.

The boat trip was so good we're going to try and do it again in the nesting season as I'd really like to see the Puffins.

Rochdale Nine

Today we carried on into the centre of Manchester, down the famous Rochdale Nine locks. Some boaters find them extremely hard work but while I wouldn't recommend them for absolute novices, we didn't have any problems.

This was the first lock which was to take us underneath these buildings in Piccadilly.

One of the problems with the Rochdale Nine is the sheer volume of water that passes down the flight. It pours over the top gates so you need to keep the boat well forward or risk it getting wet.  It's also a bit of a nuisance when you're trying to open the top gates on some of the locks as the pound level is higher than the top of the gates which means you really need 2 people to push the gate open.

The lock area underneath Piccadilly used to be frequented by rent boys and drug dealers but nowadays it's been cleaned up and there's CCTV everywhere.

There's some nice graffiti art down there too. This was just one of the pics.

There's no towpath between the locks at either end of Canal Street but there is a floating pontoon so you can get on or off the boat quite easily, although we had to breast up the 2 boats as the pontoon is quite short.

A few of the locks have windlass operated winches which use chains to open or close the lock gates as there isn't enough room for full length lock beams.

Lock 88 took us underneath Oxford Street.

Just as you exit the lock there's a very powerful jet of water coming into the canal. It's so powerful it pushed Wye Knot 2 sideways into the bridge.

Most of the canal is overshadowed by high dingy looking buildings but there are a few green areas. Someone here was obviously a bird fan, along with the duck house there was a small dovecote. We saw a kingfisher and there were bat boxes under one of the railway bridges.

This is the bar and club area in the railway arches alongside Deansgate Locks.

We finally made it into the bottom lock no. 92 two and a half hours after we set off.

I was a bit apprehensive after hearing all the horror stories, but we had a good run and I'd certainly do it again.  We'll be coming back up the Nine in a few weeks to get back up to the Macc. before the stoppages on the Marple Flight.

We're now moored in Castlefield and will carry on again in the morning.

Ashton Canal

We spent last night in Portland Basin Marina, having gone there for our 4 yearly Boat Safety check. I can't believe the boat is now 4 years old! Where has the time gone?

We'd had torrential rain and strong winds overnight, so I was very happy that by the time we were ready to set off at 8am it had cleared up and the sun had come out.

Our first obstacle of the day was bridge 21.  Nicholson's guide book states that it's very low, and it was. The short cruising chimney only just made it through.

We'd met a guy at the top of Bosley Locks last week who claimed to be a professional boat mover and who told us how he'd never been on a worse canal than the Ashton.  He claimed it was full of rubbish, that the locks were exceptionally difficult and the area was full of scroats. So based on that I was dreading the trip.  It just goes to show that you shouldn't listen to everything you hear.  There was no litter in the water and neither boat picked up anything round our props.  The locks were well maintained and reasonably easy to work through, certainly no worse than anything we've come across elsewhere.  The only bit of graffitti we saw was this, and we didn't see any scroats either.

We got to the first lock just before 9.30.

A few of the locks (can't remember which) had these hand/foot holes in the lock sides. I haven't come across anything like them anywhere else.

It took us a long time getting down the flight as every lock was empty so had to be filled before Roger could take our boat in. Once he'd gone out I re-filled it for David on Wye Knot 2 and then helped him work down.

This is lock 4. Just round the right hand bend was another low bridge which was even lower than bridge 21. It was a railway bridge that's head reinforcing beams added underneath it and was so low that I had to take the chimney off and the flowers got flattened a bit. It was even lower than Droitwich Tunnel and that's saying something!

This is a block of apartments in New Islington, beside the new marina. They're hideous and are starting to look decidedly shabby as the graphics which have been put all over them are starting to peel off. It's no wonder they're half empty.

7 and a half hours after we left Portland Basing we finally made it to Piccadilly Village where we're spending the night.

It's a good job there's only the two of us travelling today as there's only room here for 2 boats. It was a tight squeeze for us getting into our mooring and I doubt that a 70ft boat would fit.