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Monday 26 March 2018

Vale Royal Moorings Monday 26 March 2018

It may have been a warm sunny day yesterday but the grass was white this morning when we woke up, however the sun was out and it soon warmed up. Not much about on the river yet, we only met a couple of boats all day.

We pushed off at about ten past eleven and decided to head upstream again. Winnington Swing Bridge looked nice in the sunshine, you can see how little wind there is.DSCF0490

The old Soda plant is now down to cleaning soil and rubble it was a different picture the first time we DSCF0486came down the Weaver in 2015 it looked like this series of photos my blog.

It wasn't till we passed the lift that we met our first boat of the dayDSCF0491

the second was somewhat smaller being a Bridgewater Tug but I think it was off to tow a larger barge somewhere.(The camera didn't work).

We had a short stop in Northwich to eat lunch, fill with water and do a bit of shopping, dropping off and buying books at the charity shops.

Its nice to see that the old slipway in Northwich has been cleared of undergrowth, the winches look as if they may have been used yesterday, I wonder if they are still serviceable and if the slip will be put back to work.DSCF0492

Up through Hunts lock which is now thankfully manned every day, the CRT information sheet is not very clear as to when seasonal manning commences, it just says Easter, so it looks like that includes the week that contains Good Friday. As usual the keeper asks if we are going through Vail Royal locks so he can phone ahead and warn them, they are still operating the lock with the use of a winch to pull the gates open and closed, they use to have two one to open and one to close, but one broke. The quadrants have been away for ages now and I read somewhere that new ones are being cast. Above the lock a Cormorant took off as we approached, most of them just dive and come up when you have gone by but this one made a big fuss of getting airborne. DSCF0495

There are some visitor moorings with mooring rings about half a mile above the lock so we have stopped there for the night.

Today's Journeymap 05 6 miles, 2 locks in 2¾ hours.

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