Following an email yesterday we have had a change of plan, we now need to be at Thorne Marine on Tuesday afternoon and not Wednesday, so we have had to reduce the length of our cruise on this end of the Bridgewater. In the end there were only two of us here overnight and it proved to be a very quiet mooring. Her is the view looking back past the mooring on the long straight.
The old bridge keepers houses at Barton Swing Aqueduct are now completely derelict.
There are plans to reinstate the high level walkway across the aqueduct at some point
Mind you the aqueduct its self is not in the best of shape, it looks as if the Navigation Lights is only held on by its flex. This is for commercial shipping using the Manchester Ship Canal. lets hope it doesn’t fall onto the deck of a boat.
I couldn’t see any boats on the canal today so hopefully we wont get stuck the wrong side if it fails. There may not have been any boat traffic but there were plenty of cars on the new Mersey Gateway Bridge in the distance.
The next part of the canal runs alongside quite a noisy road, on the off side is the Worsley Boat Club with lots of spaces so they are probably at Runcorn for the weekend. Both the dry docks at Worsley had boats in them, quite a busty spot.
We didn’t stop in Worsley this time, since we were here last the service block has been closed, it always was quite disgusting. Once out of the town the canal is fairly straight again and has good paths both sides, on the offside the Canal Company have installed chicanes which I can only assume is to slow down cyclists but with the width of the path I can’t see it having any effect at all.
This complex has appeared since we were last this way, its the Royal Horticultural Society Bridgewater, with a brand new building set alongside a lake. I couldn’t get a clear photo through all the trees unfortunately, but its quite impressive.
We only went as Bridgewater Marina at Boothstown before winding to make our return journey. As we approached Worsley we passed one of the BCC cranes that are scattered along the canal ready to install stop planks which are normally stacked straight under the crane hook ready for use, in this case all the planks are fixed together to form a single door to drop in.
We carried on back across the aqueduct, luckily we had just crossed when a boat coming towards us arrive so I was able to take this photo without having to hurry off.
We chugged straight past last nights empty moorings back down to Waters Meeting where we left the Leigh Branch and turned right onto the main line again, just going as far as the Watch House to moor for the night. At the moment the Metro that runs parallel to the canal here is quite noisy, so we are hoping it doesn’t run to late into the night or early in the morning on Bank holiday weekends.
Today’s Journey
12 miles, no locks in 4 hours.
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