Hawk Green, Marple

You don’t get two days the same, Light rain when we got up, but no rush so waited to the rain to finish, what happened it chucked it down for about half an hour then it stopped. The rest of the journey was dry but since we have been moored up its rained again.
It was quarter to twelve before we finally left in the rain, reversing between the rows of moored boats to wind at the service point and visit the book swap, before heading back onto the Peak Forest canal. This chap didn’t even say “Ay up” as we passed by dead slow, just waved his hook at me.

The giant Hogweed looks to be doing very well this year, I think its spread a but since we were last this way.

As we passed this boat I noticed that the front mooring pin was just laying on the bank and sure enough as I past the bows swung across the canal, so we stopped and repegged it. This time with the pin driven fully in, a passing local boater said it had been here for months, I wonder if the rubbish will still be here when it goes?

I took these photographs just before the bridge where I photographed the hands yesterday, its a set of finger cawing the bank and a large bee on the roof.

As we went through the swing bridge there was a boat tied up on the bridge moorings the far side, so I had to pick Diana up on the off side with the stern. Much muttering about inconsiderate mooring until we found the owner hanging in the weed hatch trying to remove a cratch cover from his prop, poor chap.
The next lift bridge is electrically operated with the control box conveniently on the towpath side.

A little further along there are these two big red “No Mooring” signs about 30m apart with no obvious reason for them unless they are left over from before the towpath edge was repaired.

When we found what looked like a nice length of piling we pulled over to moor for the night. On closer inspection it wasn’t that good a length and we had to move back a bit to get our mooring lines to tie in with the securing bolts.
As I type this its chucking it down again.

Today’s Journey

5¾ miles no locks in 2¾ hours.