Buglawton

Today's Canal : Macclesfield

Rather cooler today but still no rain although it did threaten once or twice. Over lunch time, the sun came out and it was much warmer but it only lasted a couple of hours.

We set off as usual with a morning of largely uninterrupted level cruising ahead of us. A couple of swing bridges, one manual and one hydraulic, came part way through.

But first we passed though Bollington where an oft photographed mill welcomes boaters to the small town. Amongst other office uses, there is a small community radio station.

A little further, the Adelphi Mill has been adapted as apartments.

Apart from the short a stretch through Macclesfield, the canal is very rural in aspect with a succession of bridges, most of which have the same design, but with the occasional turnover bridge for a change (of towpath!).

There are still some brightly coloured wild flowers around to liven up the otherwise very green surroundings.

We made the briefest of stops on the outskirts of Macclesfield at Hurdsfield so that Christine could pop to a nearby shop for a newspaper (the last one in stock). As the bank was shallow and stony, Mike 'hovered' rather than attempt to moor. Whilst he did so, a fuel boat passed by.

The original Hovis factory no longer produces the iconic bread flour but now is an elegant apartment block and even its name seems to have disappeared.

Back out in the country we passed over the Gurnett Aqueduct - it crosses a road but from above there is very little to be seen. Mike was rather disappointed by the view from below, hardly worth the effort of climbing down the steps!

In the distance The Cloud, a prominent hill, started to come into view. We will pass much closer to it later this afternoon.

The manual and the powered swing bridges appeared next. Alas, we only held up a car and caravan at the latter - most disappointing!

Shortly afterwards we passed a converted working boat named St Austell. We are not sure why such craft were given Cornish place names as they are so far from the narrowboat network.

Just a rural scene

After stopping just above the Bosley Flight for lunch we set off into the set of 12 locks. At the first we also made use of the disposal facilities whilst the boat was going down. We could see that there was a steady stream of boats coming up the flight and we were told that there had been a problem with a leak in one of the lower pounds and that they had been prevented from coming up the flight until 11:30.

Horse Hook

We learnt something new about locks features today: in some places, not often, we see small hooks, just above the top gates. They are angled such that it seemed unlikely that they were for holding a boat either going up or down. An adjacent information board explained that these "Horse Hooks were used to reduce the effort need by a horse to pull a boat moving out of the lock . . . gives a 2 to 1 advantage to enable the boat to move more easily".

Side Pond

The flight was previously provided with side ponds to reduce the amount of water used in locking boats through. Sadly these were disabled when the commercial traffic ceased and several are now kept as nature reserves!

Lock 7

With so many boats coming up we made good progress downhill as each lock was left ready for us and within 45 minutes we were at Lock 7. One of the upcoming boats decided to turn the lock ahead of us which meant that Christine had to wait longer than expected. The bank was rather poor so she kept a little back from the lock but, just as the other boat was coming out of the lock Christine found herself wedged on some underwater rocks. As she attempted to reverse away from them, the tiller arm suddenly swung across and forced her over the side of the boat. Luckily, at that moment to crew of the other boat were at that point and pulled her out just as Mike arrived, sensing that something was amiss but had heard nothing!

Largely undamaged apart from several bruises and with lost glasses, Christine was not only soaked through but inevitably quite shaken. (Despite a fleeting temptation, Mike did not succumb and take a photo of a half-drowned Christine!)

However, a lock flight with very short pounds offers no respite and so, as she showered and changed, Mike continued rather more slowly down the locks. A little later Christine was sufficiently recovered at least to drive the boat between the last few locks. amazingly, despite all of this we managed to complete the flight in 1 hour 45 minutes.



The Cloud

The Cloud was now very much closer.

Christine was a little concerned about her ring finger that was bruised, in case it might swell up, so we identified that there is a Minor Injuries Unit in Congleton, open until 6 so we pressed on.

In the end, as we reached the point where we had expected to moor overnight, the finger was showing no signs of swelling although a little bruised so we deferred a visit to Congleton until tomorrow when we can also do our weekend shopping.

12.5 miles - 12 locks