Middlewich

As it was such a beautiful morning when we awoke early that we decided to 'time shift' our schedule forward an hour (ish!).

Last night, after finishing the blog, we saw a farmer in the adjacent field working hard to finish cutting his hay before darkness fell. Today we could see that he indeed did succeed but it must have been after we made ready for bed!

For the first hour and a half, the canal was quiet and we saw almost no boats on the move - this did not last! The long straight sections of the Shroppie are sometimes mirrored by the tallness and straightness of the trees alongside the towpath.

As we passed under the railway line - from Nantwich to Shrewsbury - Christine asked if it was still used. Having been on it on our last trip, Mike replied that it was occasionally but an infrequent service with very short trains. Of course, no sooner said than two trains passed by, one with four coaches!

At Nantwich, just by the bridge that is the zero point for the mileposts south of here, we stopped very briefly for the sani station.

Surprisingly, there was no queue of boats waiting to go up the flight at Hurleston - on the way to Llangollen - good news for a boat we passed a few minutes later who could not believe his luck.

Barbridge Stop Narrows

Just before Barbridge Junction the canal narrows for what was once a stop lock and, probably, where tolls were collected.

Barbridge Junction

The turn onto the Middlewich Branch is rather tight, especially from the south, but - of course - Christine managed it, despite a boat coming the other way refusing to respond to her signals.

There are three large marinas or boatyards in a short distance along this canal so it was no surprise that we arrived at the first lock to be faced with a queue - the boat at the front in this photo is nearer to the lock than it appears. There seemed to be more 'plastic' boats than usual out in the summer sunshine. Also, many of the boats seemed to be very inexperienced - one even tried to empty the lock before the previous boat coming up had started to leave! Still, gives us a chance to do a little bit of 'on the job' training with them. We eventually cleared the lock after about a hour's delay.

Minshull Lock

All of the locks on this short canal are very deep. This is the one at Church Minshull which had an emergency repair over the winter.

The Middlewich Branch is noted for its very rural setting and, in the bright sunshine, the only problem we had was in deciding whose turn it was to sit at the front!

Spotted an unusually ornate cottage but could not see why it was built so special. It looked as if it was a lodge to a large estate but the map gave us no indication.

Buttercups were in profusion - everywhere both in the fields and on the towpath.

Top Flash

There is just one spot where it is possible to see the River Weaver, which for some distance is never very far away (until the inter-connection at Anderton), together with Top Flash. The salt extraction around Northwich has produced numerous lakes, often called 'flashes'.

Chicks continue to arrive - here is a very new cygnet not yet ready to venture from the nest where it was incubated carefully by its parent.

Canal boats come in many different shapes and designs - not sure how well this one works inside - it seems to be a small scale version of the Dutch barge design.

Before long we arrived at Wardle Lock which for many years was well-known for its unofficial lock keeper: Maureen, who at one time carried cargoes on the canal. She constantly attended to boats passing through and was well known for making her views known if a boatman did something of which she disapproved! Sadly, she died in 2012 and a plaque has been set up alongside the lock in her memory.

After Wardle Junction, on the edge of Middlewich, we turned northwards to drop down through three more deep locks. These, again, took a little while as most of the boats seemed to have inexperienced crews, especially the one we were following down!

Shortly after the locks we pulled in for the night where we planned. It was a little bit of a relief as we had been told that the moorings were quite full - in fact there was plenty of room and we were just a couple of minutes away from the parish church where we plan to visit tomorrow morning. Mike popped to a nearby shop where he was able to pick up a paper - a bit of a surprise as it was so late in the day.

16.8 miles - 7 locks