Bosley bottom lock

Last night was the coldest this trip with it dropping to 1.2°C on the boat roof, so possibly a bit of ground frost, this was after it had stopped raining. This morning it was bright sunshine so we were away just before ten and off to the top lock, no one had been past so hopefully we would not be following anyone.
When we arrived at the top lock there was a minibus unloading a group of young people with learning difficulties, but more importantly the top gates were ajar. As I pulled into the mouth the Volockie appeared, opened the offside gate and informed me he had just walked the flight and no one was waiting to come up, also a couple of ponds near the bottom were well down, so we set off on our way with every lock full ahead of us, About half way down the Volockie caught us up, he was heading down to 9/10 to add a bit more water, With all the locks full we pushed an extra lock full down each time we worked a lock,  he also opened the top gates as he went which was really useful. All the offside landing stages below the locks are unusable, so I was unable to stop in the lock mouth and close up behind me which is our normal mode of locking down, with Diana walking ahead to open the next lock.

When we got to lock 9 the next pound was very low and emptying the lock I was lightly grounded, I was going to close up the lock and let a bit more water down, but the Volockie suggested flushing me out and see if I could cross the low pound which worked. It was here that we met up again with the group of young people oiling the paddle gear with biodegradable oil in case a drop went in the canal. That’s OK but with the first good rain it biodegrades away. They were accompanied by a CRT employee who I thing was the volunteer supervisor/coordinator.
Our plan was to moor at the bottom of the locks, but we didn’t expect to do them in under 2 hours, so we moored at the south end of the visitor moorings overlooking the railway viaduct with the sun still shining.

Today’s Journey

1½ miles, 12 locks in 1¾ hours