Whatcroft Flash, Tuesday 10 September 2019

Day : Tuesday
Date : 10 September 2019

Start : 0950
Finish : 1700 Whatcroft Flash

The rain was still hanging about when we got up but soon left us. A boat went by a little after 9 am so we hung on until ten to ten before pushing off, Colin from The Wool Boat was outside to wave us off. The geese around here are feeding on the stubble and roosting on the lakes so make a good noise as they cross morning and evening, but nothing all night.

We expected the locks to be against us but we met 4 boats before the first lock, all single handed and all men. So waiting to leave paid off, at Booth Lane middle lock CRT had just about locked up, doing lock maintenance and clearing by-washes, at Booth Lane bottom lock another boat was coming up, plus one waiting below. The housing development by the locks has now been joined by a block of flats or apartments, I wonder if this is the a"affordable housing" that now accompanies most developments.

At Rumps lock we caught up with the single handing boater that passed before we set off and by Kings Lock we were third in the queue with a steady stream of boats coming up.

As we locked down a boat arrived from the Middlewich Locks so the top one was ready for us, a Volockie drew the middle one on his way for his lunch break and we turned the bottom. At Big Lock, which is a wide lock we were back with the single handing gent. We waited while a boat locked up and then dropped down together, we pulled away first and didn't see him again.

There is quite a bit of floating pennywort on the T&M up near the flashes, I hope the winter is hard enough to kill it off or seriously set it back in its spread.

We carried on back to the marina where we unloaded some of the stuff (6 weeks dirty washing) to the car and then did an oil and filter change, plus topping up the batteries. The new ones are using much less water, I only added a litre in total. Once that was all sorted we left the marina again and headed down to Whatcroft Flash for the night.

Today's Journey 11 Miles 9 Locks in 5½ hours