We left the dry dock at 8-30am but the day didn’t quite go as planned. After leaving the dry dock we passed Matt and Rebekah’s boat looking exceedingly smart moored in the weir stream.
We continued slowly past the rowing club where they were still getting their boats out back to the main river and turned upstream. There were one or two rowing boats already out on the river and several came past us going faster than us. one or two were already on their way down’
We carried on up to Vale Royal lock but there was no sign of life so I dropped back to the lock moorings and Diana walked round to see what was happening. Turned out they were short staffed so he was waiting for help from Hunts lock and once he arrived they would let boats down from above before locking us up. Eventually I saw life at the lock, you can’t see it from the lock moorings, so we set off and waited just down stream of the lock. Good job I did, there were three boats in the lock, ifI had waited round the bend I would have shot out after the second one past. Once they were out of the way we went in. At this point our plans had to change. They couldn’t fully close the nearside bottom gate, they tried drawing a grappling hook along the cill, opening and closing several times, opening and flushing water through from above all with no luck so we decided we would head down stream instead and reversed out and head off. There was quite a gathering of rowers when we returned through the rail bridge but they are very well discipled and don’t just wander about all over the river, up one side and down the other, unlike lots we have encountered.
We only waited a few minutes for Hunts Lock, we could head Matt hard at work washing off the next pair of boats. This sign on the lock moorings is a blast from the past, maybe because they cant just drive up in a van and change it to blue.
We dropped the rubbish off at the CRT Northwich yard pontoons, Diana had to split it into separate bins to get it in as they were all full and not been touched for at least a week.
On the way down to Anderton we met the CRT Anderton trip boat with a few passengers onboard, its a nice day for a river trip.
Then down to Saltersford Lock where again I stopped on the lock moorings and Diana went ahead to find out what was happening. She came back with the news that there was a boat in the lock going down, two coming up and then us. As the lock is very slow the lock keeper suggested we had a brew, which we did. By the time we entered the lock it was getting quite warm, at least this one is automated even if it is very slow, It took just over ten minutes to empty. The lock keeper enquired if we would be going through Dutton and we told him no. On our way to Acton Bridge we met a couple of paddle boarders out for the after noon, they came back past once we were moored up.
We had hoped to have moored just downstream of the Acton Bridge visitor moorings as there is less road noise there, but one of the three from Vale Royal had beaten us to it. There is just room for two boats but we would have been fender to fender and that’s the sort of place you go to be alone, so we returned to the Acton Bridge moorings, since we have been here we have been joined by the other two boats that left Vale Royal this morning.
Today’s Journey
11 miles 2½ locks in 5¾ hours
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