Devil’s Garden Monday 25 April 2016

I think Winsford must have more than its share of siren sounding vehicles, motorbike and moped riders, not to mention boy racers doing wheel spins, still they are all good lads and go to bed at 11 pm.

This morning we woke to heavy rain so we were in no hurry to go anywhere, Diana visited Morison’s and while she was in there the sky’s opened yet again. Whit I didn’t mention yesterday was that when we came back to the boat following the rain, Diana nearly went a cropper on the wet wooden decking, it was like a sheet of ice. I emailed the council about it this morning pointing out the danger, just think if Tim and Pru  go head over elbow next week at the official opening.

The boat moored behind us yesterday said that they were coming to dredge the basin out this morning before the opening,about  11 o’clock we spotted this chap hard at work with his spade. There were actually 3 of them, one was cleaning the new decking and almost slipped over and one raking twigs out of the water.

We pushed off at 11-30 am going down as far as the Vale Royal visitor moorings, where we stopped for lunch. On the way we passed these floating islands of plants which I assume (a dangerous thing to do) CRT have planted. I hope they are well tethered for when the river is in flood.

At Vale Royal lock cart are repairing the bottom paddles on the large lock. The paddle is the large drum like structure sitting on the deck of the barge just below the red crane boom.
In Northwich they are putting up some beautifully designed buildings. One thing you notice is a great big black brick wall as you approach the town, the white blob in the middle is where the black tiles have already fallen off the sheet material used in the construction. The other faces have lots of tinted glass, again you can see missing tiles beside some of the windows and its not finished yet.

When we arrived on the weaver I posted a photo of the new moorings just south of the lift which are not in use yet, this is the notice attached to them.

We made a short stop at the Lift while I went and booked out upward passage on Wednesday, needless to say the slot I wanted, which was why I was booking is not available.

I think they may be taking this old Chemical works down as there were chaps working from a scissor lift on the north side. I bet that top building shakes in a gale.  

The Bluebells are coming out well now, we have seen a few over the past week but these are probably the best so far.

While waiting for Dutton lock to empty a train was crossing the viaduct, until I looked at the close up photograph I couldn’t read what it said on the trucks, this has set me thinking what are they carrying, there is a lot of it.

We only carried on for about another mile to moor at a spot called Devil's Garden, by the way the boat is bashing about in this wind its a very good name for it. I just hope it dies down before we go to bed tonight.
After we had moored up, we just fit between two bushes that are about 65 feet apart I noticed that there are bird feeders hanging in one bush and a coconut shell in the other, but there are no seeds in them. I wonder why the owner left them behind?

Today’s Journey  14½ miles, 4 locks, 2 navigation authorities in 4½ hours.