Dutton Lock Tuesday 26 April 2016

Thankfully the wind died down before we went to bed so we weren’t banging around all night, however it picked up again this morning and although it was sunny it felt cool in the breeze. We set off at 10 am. with a stiff onshore wind making life a bit difficult getting away, but once under way we were fine. The river was a bit choppy with wind over tide and gusting 28 mph.

After our last visit I heard about some old wrecks that had just been left to rot in one of the disused bends of the river pre straightening, so we moored at Sutton Weaver Visitor Moorings and walked back to see what we could find. There are several hulks there, some of them in the old disused lock on the old river navigation that was in use before they made the straight new cut, others lay above the lock. The whole area is full of reeds so its difficult to see, but Google maps captures them well see here.
   

The path between the moorings and the old lock was quite interesting with the bushes making a covered way at times.

We continued down stream, stopping for water and rubbish disposal just below Sutton Weaver swing bridge, once that was sorted we went as far as Marsh Lock to wind before returning up stream.

The railway line that crosses the Weaver at Sutton Weaver has a rather smart signal box standing high on the embankment as well as the semaphore signals.

I am not sure what the Fire Brigade were up to at the Runcorn Rowing Club but I suspect it was just a river exercise, they were packing up when we passed.Lots of Canada Geese are nesting along the canal down this end, something that struck me strange is that the sitting bird holds her neck out at right angle to her body and parallel with the ground. The probably all do this but these ones were at eye height so it was quite visible. I also spotted a ware of Golden Eye ducks. We carried on up to Acton Swing bridge where we visited the Leigh Arms to check it was OK to leave a car in their carpark tomorrow, we timed it just right because as we were testing the beer it started hailing. We have avoided getting wet today but I doubt everyone has been so lucky. Beer finished and hail stopped we went back to the boat and dropped down to moor just above Dutton Lock for the night, the reason being it the traffic is quite noisy crossing the bridge where as here its just the rowers and aircraft. We will move back up to Acton Bridge in the morning to pick up our guests for the day.

Today’s Journey  13 miles, 1 lock in 3½ hours