We left Stoke heading for Manchester but a change in plans now see's us going via Middlewitch and not up the Macclesfield canal as planned. We'll return down the Macca, later.
On the outskirts of Stoke passing ruins of industrial buildings there are still....
Active industry in some buildings and more Bottle Kilns....
Of different shapes and sizes......
Surrounding the.....
Middleport Pottery works...
A lot of the canal side buildings are...
Derelict and obviously not on the "Appartments to Be" agenda.....
A couple of miles farther on...
The entrance to the Harecastle Tunnel fronts..... but the entrance is blocked...
It's a one one way tunnel and controlled by the Tunnel Keeper who will allow a maximum of eight boats through in convoy at one time. When you enter from this side large doors slam shut behind and huge fans start to suck out the exhaust gases as the tunnel doesn't have the customary ventilation shafts through the roof.
We had to wait about three quarters of an hour for NB,s coming through...
The doors open and....
Out comes the first of three NB,s...
The tunnel is 2926yds long and takes about fourty fives minutes...
The third boat out was....
Waka Huia... Marilyn and David from NZ....
They stopped opposite....
And David tied up the ropes at the water point ...
We had been following their blog and had hoped to meet them on the other side of the tunnel at Kidsgrove at the junction for a catch up.. The tunnel man only allowed us to Yak fo a couple of minutes then told us to "Get on Ya bike"...
Hope to catch up in the future.....
We cast off and....
Lined up the entrance....
It's quite wide, about 13 feet......
It widens after this entrance section...
But the Freaky part is...
About halfway when the width narrows and the roof gets low... very low..... not good if one suffers from claustrophobia...
Anyway we.....
Made it through and the sun was shinning....
We started the first of many locks.....
Hardings Wood Junction..
Passing by the...
British Waterways yard at Red Bull with two old cranes on the canal side....
We were going along fine having completed five locks....
Looking back from the sixth lock... It's here were a passing boater told us about a problem there had been at lock 63, the pound had run dry, and the lock was shut down. Cart had managed to flow water from a reservoir and open the lock. Meanwhile a cue of 50 NB,s had formed over the last two days coming toward us. It was going to be open until 8.30pm today but shut tomorrow. Nothing to do but pass lock 63 today. That's seventeen more locks plus three more to clear the flight...
We had a few holdups as there were several NB,s going our way but six hours and 26 locks in total later we moored up at Wheelock......
Looking back toward the Macclesfield canal and...
Beyond is Mow Cop hill and castle ruins.... 1754.....
All the locks are singles but....
Mostly there are two side by side which speeds up traffic.....
The water in this canal....
The Trent and Mersey is a different colour.....Iron Oxide leaking into the water from the ground mainly around the tunnel area..... Leaves a reddy brown muck on the lock walls......
Next day overcast but fine... we reached the junction at Middlewich where the Shropshire union canal heads off left toward Chester...
doing the....
Kings Lock outside the same named pub.....
Must have been a full moon or something happening... At the next four locks we meet some strange people who displayed a varied array of poor boat handling skills and protocol... Still better than being at a real job...
Still putting on a show....
Plenty of hanging baskets....
Passing the large industrial.....
ICI plant with rows of pipe work, steel support and electrical ducting crossing the canal in 8 -10 different places.....
All to maintain.....
Production......
Through out the area there are vast salt mines underground and after years of nining there's a lot of subsidence...
It causes problems with the canal sinking and in places there are what's called....
Flashes... the canal has widened and takes on a lake look... Actually makes for a nice place to moor up and enjoy the view....
It was at one of the Flashes we met....
John and Diana.... NB Molly Rose...More "Kiwis" doing the NB experience and they are from the same town only living about three quarters of a mile from our home....
Also moored nearby were....
Ray And Dianne NB Ferndale.... we had met last year so a catch up along with John and Diane aboard NB FireflyNZ filled the evening.....
This morning early... about 8.30am...
Ray & Dianne left heading for Middlewich....
We got moving a bit later.... 11.30am and because it wasn't raining "Cats & Dogs" like last year when we were here we....
Decided to go down and back up the Anderton Boat lift.... One of the Wonders of the Canal system....
Entering the lift.....
The door shuts to close off the canal water.....
Going down and you can see....
A maze in the kids play area made out of counter weights that were used to operate the lift before it was converted to hydraulic.... each one weighs 14 tonne... 250 tonne in total....
As we go down the ...
Other steel trough with the boats goes up on the Stainless steel hydraulic rams... German made.. 1 million quid each....
It was well worth doing again... especially in the dry......
Near the Saltersford Tunnel....
A tidy little English cottage and garden....
Travelling through the tunnel....
Leonie sees up a ventilation shaft....
The tunnel is only 424 yds long but is quite bent... Being one way you have to wait and go through from our side only on the hour to twenty past....
Once in the tunnel....
There were two boats behind us... not visible because of the bend....
Started to rain going into the tunnel....
But fine when we emerged...
Moved on about three mile and....
