Anderton Nature Park Tuesday 19 May 2015

We were all tucked up on the town visitor moorings when we noticed a boat come in and moor ahead of us. Chatting with them they only came to shop and were then going to leave again for a countryside mooring. We in turn went for a walk along the far side of the flash before wandering into town to look at the shopping facilities.

Winsford has a good selection of shops with Morrison’s up the hill to the east side of the river and a shopping complex up to the hill to the west side. During the evening we were joined by youngsters from the local canoe club who were enjoying the sheltered waters of the mooring lagoon. OK we got bumped a few times but a polly washing up bowl wont do much harm to 8 mm of steel.

Following the nice weather last night this morning we woke to rain again so didn’t set off until quarter to eleven when the sun came out, but that didn’t last long and I was soon out in the rain and hail. With the rain over the past few days the river has come up a bit as can be seen by the level indicator at Newbridge.

I mentioned yesterday that The Red Lion garden had been vandalised, well this is what it looks like now. Someone has emptied a lot of the white stones out of the letters and the letter N of Lion is missing completely.

At Union Salt they were busy moving salt around, I am surprised it is hard enough to support the weight of the lorries without them sinking in.

As we passed the Vale Royal visitor moorings which were now empty I rang the lock keeper to tell him we were on our way, when we arrived he was well on the way to turning the lock for us. As we left he said he would ring Hunt’s lock to say we were on our way, by now the rain had stopped but the wind was picking up. At Hunt’s the top gate was open, the lock keeper on duty was the same one as the first time we went up and he asked if we had spent all week up there.

Back in Northwich we moored on the town moorings and went to Weatherspoons for lunch, as well as doing some shopping in Sainsbury's.

Once suitably topped up we returned to the boat and mover down under the bridge to the service point where Harnser was topped up as well. That done and we headed off downstream to moor for the night at Anderton Nature Park. Diana went for a wander round visiting one of the hides. This was the view from it and passing some of the sculptures. It seems that these days everywhere has to have sculpture to make it more interesting.

Today’s Journey

6¾Miles, 2 Locks in 3 hours.