Bollington Friday 23 June 2017

A nice quiet night below the locks and this morning was fine but cool, we are talking fleeces again and not tee shirts. We planed to set off at 1000hrs and a boat came down the flight about 0930 hr, before we could respond a boat came the other way and went up ahead of us, so turning the locks. However this didn't make much difference because although we had to turn lock 12 there was a boat coming down assisted by a volockie at lock 10, so a short wait and the rest were with us.

Just below the locks on the offside there are a couple of boats moored, one of them looks as if its clad in brass sheeting.

The Volockie that came down with the boat soon joined us for our upward journey, but only for a couple of locks, after that we met boats at every lock except number one where another volunteer keeper (Volockie) asked Diana why she bothered to draw the bottom paddles and not just open the gates, I am not sure if Diana explained how with a leaking top gate an empty lock soon starts to fill and you can't open the gate with a 6" differential of water level.

At the top of each lock on this flight is a metal peg set in the ground on the offside. this was used to get extra purchase on the tow line so the horse could get the boat moving out or the lock easier.

Lock 2 was interesting with 3 I think Germans coming down, the one by the lock had a reasonable idea, but the other two wouldn't listen to him so they ended up with their boat wedged across the cut just above the lock due to one of them tying the bow rope off far to short.

I often pick up fenders that people lose off their boats, today I picked up two wheelbarrow wheels, these are useful if you need to keep the boat a bit further out, only they had a couple of unwelcome passengers onboard.

Only one of the swing bridges was in operation today and it is electrically motivated. We only managed to stop 2 cyclists and a chap towing a trailer. Once the boat has passed it seams to take ages as first it closes, then drops down onto the supports before finally the barriers lift allowing the traffic to pass again. For some reason the footpath one is open and the footpath closed.

Not long after the bridge we passed a garden with a giant boot in it which I suspect is a child's Wendy House.

We decided not to moor on the pontoons in Macclesfield but to continue on out into the country side. Directly opposite the mooring pontoons they are building luxury retirement apartments and the notices on the fencing say Danger Asbestos but I doubt there is any there as I don't think a fence would contain it.

We tried several times to moor, we did get in at one spot but the boat ahead had a rather noisy petrol generator running on top of his roof so we pushed on and finally moored in Bollington opposite Bollington Wharf Marina where we will have the tank emptied in the morning.

Today has been bit of a day for birds, firstly where we tried to moor but failed this family of young Swallows were sitting on a fence and the parents kept swooping in to feed them. Then there was the Heron, just waiting to strike at a fish but was disturbed by two people approaching from behind the boat. To top it all was a duck with ether 15 or 16 chicks, we couldn't count them as they swam around like little dodgem cars so we tried counting in the photograph.

Today's Journey 9 miles and 12 locks in 5¼ hours