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Tuesday 27 March 2018

Barnton Cut Tuesday 27 March 2018

Well the weather forecast was right and we woke up in the night with the rain, that was in between waking up with the Canada geese who spent the night just across the river. This morning there was more heavy rain but by 11am it was down to a fine drizzle so we set off for Winsford the official head of navigation.DSCF0505

Just before Newbury swing bridge they are extending the mobile home park by building two large gabion walls, I wonder if they will be advertised as having their own Haw Haw.DSCF0498

Newbury bridge is quite low, we have to remove the stove chimney and lower the exhaust and flag pole, I thought the weather station would be OK but the anemometer just twanged on the underside bolts, so I remover the head before we came back down stream which happened to coincide with a car crossing. DSCF0513

Union Salt had a salt mountain a little further up stream last time we came this way. Today its 90% gone, It must have been the beast from the East.DSCF0502

The moorings at The Red Lion pub have had a makeover since we were last this way, lets hope they are not as slippery when wet as the town moorings at the end of the Lower Flash.DSCF0509

After winding we headed back down stream, by now the weather had improved quite a bit and the sun was peeping out, but much cooler than yesterday.

Just by the official winding hole, only needed if you are a lot bigger than us, there is another salt storage depot, this one the salt is all covered but today they were even removing salt from there.DSCF0504

Continuing on I got the feeling I was being watched and I wasn't wrong as this is who was sitting in the tree.DSCF0510

As the locks are all manned they close for lunch each day so we stopped on the same moorings we used last night and had our lunch before locking down through Vale Royal lock, it was good to see that they had the second winch back, so didn't need to carry it over the lock to open and close the gate. DSCF0514As usual they rand ahead to Hunt's lock to let them know we were coming. The keeper here had 2 trainees that he was instructing. Chatting to him it turned out that on Sunday he was in Middlewich pulling the trapped boats from the Middlewich Branch following the breach.

Saturn, the restored horse drawn fly boat was moored outside Yarwood's Basin It can often be found at the bottom of the lift as part of the attractions.DSCF0518

A little further on were the barge and tug that I tried to photograph yesterday, today its just a static shot of them moored up and left.DSCF0522

CRT have moved the waste disposal facilities from the town bridge out to a floating pontoon here, this is to reduce and hopefully stop them being used by non boaters to dump rubbish, this is a problem CRT have all over the system that householders use CRT facilities to dispose of their rubbish. The new facilities consist or a row of domestic type wheelie bins, its a shame they are all for general waste and non for recycling.DSCF0521

We considered going down to Acton Bridge for the night and eating in the pub, but it was too late when we arrived at Saltersford Lock to go through, so again we are on the Barnton Cut moorings.

Today's Journey map 0611½ miles, 2 locks in 3¼ hours.

2 comments:

Alf said...

Last I heard was that Biffa allegedly sort the waste from the bins at their depot so that what can be recycled is.

Pip and Mick said...

In Mid February we were at Ellesmere Port when the volunteers were moving George out from it's mooring at the museum. By the end of the afternoon moving one boat here and another there, they had manhandled George into the broad locks waiting to go down onto the Ship Canal, it was heading to the Weaver for blacking.
Pip