It began to feel a bit more like summer today - not baking hot, you understand, but warm enough when working a flight of locks. In this case, the Wheelock flight. As you can see, it was a cloudless sky as we pushed away from our overnight mooring.
It was only about 15 minutes to the first lock - perhaps the longest run of the flight! Wherever possible, boats were taking advantage of the pairing, but alas almost half of these locks have one out of action, in one case permanently. The others do not look as if a repair is imminent.
Mike took a look at one or two aqueducts today - this one, Chell's, was just before the first lock.
Not sure if this first lock was ever doubled - no sign of the second lock at the present.
Does not look as if there is much wind up at a height as the vapour trails are staying around for some time.
At least lock 59 has both in operation. These locks have very long landing areas both above and below the locks.
Looks as if this horse is so hungry it is forced to try an eat the tree stump. No wonder the tree died!
Lock 62 has had the towpath-side lock permanently weired for some time it seems.
Between the next two locks is a short arm which is used for moorings. Looks as if they do not have any vacancies at present.
That's all folks - well the bottom of the Wheelock locks anyway and the end of Heartbreak Hill. From here the locks are a bit more spaced out apart from the three just after Middlewich Junction.
We took up one of the two remaining spaces on the visitor moorings just before the village of Wheelock and enjoyed an extended lunch break. After some research last night, we have now opted to stop overnight at Elworth, a suburb of Sandbach so that we can go to its church in the morning. We could perhaps have made it to Middlewich this evening but might have found it a bit late for a mooring. Also, we have tentatively agreed to go to Kings Lock for the 50 hour service on the new engine, on Monday morning.
Just in front of where we moored, a swan was rather aggressively protecting its two cygnets and several towpath walkers were a bit intimidated and took to using slices of bread to distract it. Even passing boats joined in!
We walked into the village but the shop was rather limited - no newspaper and only green top milk! Looks as if we will have to eke out our meagre rations until we can go to a supermarket in Middlewich, hopefully tomorrow afternoon! As it happens there was by the canal bridge a much larger pet food store so if only we kept a pet . . .
Next we moved a couple of hundred metres along to the wharf itself for a 'full service'.
From here to Elworth took about three quarters of an hour - our only extended cruising today. As you can see, the water in the canal is still quite distinctively coloured from the iron in the older Harecastle Tunnels.
We noticed that there has been a lot, and we mean a lot, of new housing development between the railway line and the canal at Elworth. Some sites are still not yet complete.
6.5 Miles - 12 Locks
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