Down the Rochdale....

  

After crossing the summit it was down hill toward Manchester. The weather was still turning on warm summer days and the locks keep coming. We passed by Littleborough and Rochdale. A bit grubby passing Rochdale, and I didn't sight a spot where one would stop for a picnic.

We moored at Slattocks for a night and as I was tying the NB to the rings a fella on a bike was giving me the eye, like wondering what was going on not like wanting to invite me to the Ambidextrous Batters Ball. Anyway I said Hows it going Mate. He said OK so we had a bit of a chat. He was doing a brick laying course at the local Tech and hoped for a job after that.  Then he asked where we'd come from so I explained the last couple of days schedule and how earlier in the day we'd passed through Rochdale which I went to some length to describe to him what a Shit hole it looked like both in the canal and the surroundings as well. He said 'I'm from Rochdale".......

 

Where the lock beam is obstructed by a wall or fence meaning the beam is not long enough to get enough leverage to open it....

 

 

A system borrowed from the torture chambers of the middle ages is used....

 

 

Locks have a small stream so the excess water in the canal can bypass the lock and rejoin the canal lower down usually and it's called a weir...

This exit under a bridge was more like a....

Mini Mt, Vesuvious...... no smoke though.....

The canal passes under the.....

M62 by Castleton and the passage is just a NB width wide so when you exit this side it's a sharp turn and with out the magic of a bow thruster it's not hard to give the concrete wall on the outside of the turn a good slapping...

A couple of other lock exits.....

 

Under a rail bridge on a diagonal.... 

And under a small arch bridge,  with a tree covering half the canal to make sure the paint job don't stay too flash, close to the lock then under this large arched bridge.....

We moored by Chadderton and that leaves a six mile and 19 lock run into Manchester best done in one go so the 'Bandits" don't get you.. Well that's the talk on the cut but in reality there was nothing to fear and the only guns we saw didn't appear to be loaded and the cross bows had blunt arrows....

Kevin and Vicky on NB Harry were moored in front of us also waiting to head into Manchester next morning. Although we passed them on the run to the summit this time we planned to leave at 7.30am and not do a "Dawn Raid" as before. But they weren't giving us the chance to head them and they slept with "one eye open" and at 6.12am we heard them leave. Dammm..

Tom and Jan from NB Waiouru had friends Paul and Christine, from Waterway Routes, arriving to help do the 19 locks so when we teamed up we made good time and caught up to NB Harry with about 12 locks to go so Leonie who was on the bike going ahead setting locks helped them for a few and we all kept moving forward....
It was good to catch up later and have a "Yak", bloody nice people......

This lift bridge was different in that it....

Had Hydraulic rams on four corners and lifted vertically.....

Tom's always looking for a bargain....

And he's collected some here.... freeing the propeller.......

At the second last lock....

Working the RH paddle is not for six footers......disappears under the bridge......

On Saturday Leonie and I decided to head to Cadwell Park raceway over by Louth, Skegness way. Our mates from down Oxford way were racing so we thought we'd hire a car and go for the day....

And this is a carbon copy of our hire car...

Fiat 500... more power than one needs so we could put to test the words from the Hirers Bible... Never Be Gentle With A Rental...  2.5 hrs each way... 284 miles completed....

The track is great for viewing and action as it's a "Technical Track".
Later in the day, 5.00pm the weather turned and the rain falling saw the last race .....

run in pretty gloomy conditions... A couple of accidents and the safety car being used cut the race short...

In an earlier race this was....

Self inflicted......repaired enough to race later........

From now on all the way back to Aynho is single locks... Yeah Haa.......

We moored on the Ashton Canal......

Thomas Telford Basin.....

NB FireflyNZ and NB Harry.........