Stoke-on-trent

Currently moored at Endon on the Caldon canal. Poor internet service for the past week. Raining? Of course, its chucking it down. Listening to BBC Stoke broadcasting from the Nantwich show. The announcer is trying his best to make it sound palatable but his references to people flogging thru the mud in wellingtons reveal that it is a mess. We have been touring the Potteries museums, very interesting. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruria,_Staffordshire
But first, some nature studies.


Healthy Hefiers

Quacker

Canada Geese with a stray white goose.

Excellent Museum and Gallery at Hanley, Stoke-On-Trent, This is a working "person" powered antique potters wheel

Spitfire

Beam Engine at Etruria Industrial Museum

Animal and whale bones and flint were milled into a slurry for making Bone China

Private collection of ceramic chimney pots at Burslem

Rare Bottle kiln at Burslem

Un-finished visitor centre at Westport Lake

Marple

Marple is a small town that is historically in Cheshire but since 1974 has been in the Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, surrounded by hills and we are moored up at Bridge #1 of the Macclesfield canal, 50 m from where it joins the Peak Forest canal. The Pennines are in the near distance. The small but constantly flowing Goyt River flows thru here. The Goyt is the beginning of the Mersey river.

Before leaving Sutton we visited a house near the canal aquaduct where there is plaque commorating James Brindley, one of the engineers who designed and built the canal system, some of which was carrying coal and silk before Australia was discovered.

Many birds live on the canals. These are no good for eating.

These are.

These arn't

You can't catch these to find out.

WW2 memoribillia in a special room at the Ring-O Bells pub, dedicated to local people who died in the second world war

An oak tree makes an interesting sculpture in the grounds near the Marple library

Raining today but we went between showers to the library and the shops. You must stock up when moored close to shops, saves carrying stuff. It is not done to wheel the shopping trolley away from the supermarket so we take a travel case with wheels and fill it up.

.....The writer and linguist, George Borrow, described Marple Aqueduct as the 'Grand Aqueduct' and in his famous travel-log, 'Wild Wales', published in 1862, he wrote:
'Few things so beautiful in their origins as this Canal, which it be known, with its locks and its aqueducts, the grandest of which last is the stupendous erection near Stockport which by the bye filled my mind when a boy with wonder, constitutes the grand work of England, and yields to nothing in the world of the kind, with the exception of the Great Canal of China.' ....read more at.....

http://www.pittdixon.go-plus.net/pfc-aqueducts/pfc-aqueducts.htm

Hassall Green to Red Bull

Weather cleared up a bit yesterday afternoon so we set sail at 4pm without any definite goal and moored at Red Bull after 9pm after 15 or 16 locks and intermittent showers. Rural scenery and a small village or two. Route from Hassall Green to Red Bull (Open link to expand)

When we reached Red Bull it was 9pm and still light and showery.

Derelict lock fortunately it's double was operational

This section of the Trent and Mersey is named the Cheshire Flight even though some locks are a fair way apart and some are bunched together with only a short 30 metre pound between them, This is the bottom doors of a set of double locks. The operational lock is on the left and the derelict is on the right. Most of the double locks have both locks operational so one boat can be ascending and another descending or 2 boats can be going up or down simultaneously.

The roads are narrow and used for pedestrians, cyclists, cars, trucks and tractors. This one is probably 200 years old and still carrying the load. This tractor was in regular transit at Hassall Green as it transferred 16 hay rolls at a time from the adjoining padock to a hayshed. (yes 24 rolls, just checking if you are awake)

We will sail Rhapsody across the aquaduct and onto the Macclesfield Canal today.

Touring last weekend

Anderton Boat Lift

Almost 5 weeks after boarding Rhapsody and walking everywhere we hired a small Vauxhall Corsa car from fri morn thru to mon morning at a special weekend rate. Enterprise car rental re very good and sent a car from Crewe to pick us up and returned us after we dropped the car on monday. All part of the service. We have been busy, Crewe markets, Anderton Boat Lift, Chester city, Ellesmere Port Boat Museum, Birkinhead, Liverpool and Albert Docks, in England and Colwyn Bay, Llandudno, Bangor and Beaumaris in Wales, returning to the boat at Barbridge each evening. We ran the engine to heat water and charge the batteries each morning before setting off. We returned too late for TV so the inverter battery power is remaining around 98%. The flowers in the planters on the roof are bushing out and look good. Rain water does the trick.

Ship size lock from Albert Dock to the Mersey

Ellesmere Port Boat Museum

This is a real coal boat that was used in coal mines to bring coal from the face to the loading point. Yes the mini canals ran thru the mine and men legged them by lying on their back and pushing off the roof with their legs as shown by the manequin.

Lifting a 30 foot narrowboat into the canal at Ellesmere Port

Chester's Clock, it is on the city walls that were built before Cap'n Cook discovered Australia.

Chester, old pub, still thriving. This area is called the Rows and all the old buildings have been saved from the developers. It was Race Day and the fashionista's were out in style. And wedding parties, Chester must be THE place to get married.

Beaumaris Castle on the Isle of Anglesey, on the Holyhead side of Menai Strait.

The Menai Bridge. We also crossed the Britannia Bridge but this one is so attractive (if you are attracted to bridges).

This is the Menai Strait taken from the vintage pier at Bangor and looking toward the Irish sea. We enjoyed Welsh rarebit and it's cooked differently here in Wales and delicious. The kiosk cook also gave me lessons in the genuine pronounciation for the Pontcysyllte aquaduct. I just wish he wouldn't do it while cooking the rarebit

6' bridge at Penmaenmawr near Dwygyfylchi on the road to Abergwyngregys. Try saying that after a pint.

All the beaches are like Australia, a bit, they have water. Some even have sand but not this one.

Paragliding surfers, no shortage of wind, it would blow the tail off a sheep dog.


Meanwhile back aboard Rhapsody and more esoteric sights, poor old Jessie, there was a bloke on a quad bike trying to hurry her up and she literally s... herself.

11' 3" deep Lock at Cholmondeston



Current mooring at Middlewich. Fish and chips from the Kings lock fishshop last night, 4/10. Home made Duck l'orange tonight.

Llangollen to Barbridge Junction

Scarecrow competition at Wrenbury

Hire boaters don't wait! We had Rhapsody (foreground) held to the side in preparation to enter a Marina on the left and waited for the hireboat on the right to come thru. The hireboat in the center pulled alongside and turned into the Marina entrance cutting across the bow of the on coming boat. Crash!

The staircase locks at Grindly Brook are a work of art and have a lockkeeper to assist boaters and to decide who's next, up or down. Without the lockkeeper this section would be un-navigable.

Lift Bridges vary from walk paths to this vehicle bridge. The lift mechanism is operated by a hand windlass which you use to turn the shaft of the hydraulic pump in the foreground. Effortless!

Poor weather has restricted our cruising over the past few days. It is squally, windy, rainy interposed by sunshine. Any way we have travelled the last section of the Llangollen downstream to it's junction with the Shropshire Union at Hurlestone, then we turned left up the main line of the Shroppie to Barbridge Junction. We moored opposite a quaint Inn and enjoyed a meal there. Plenty of birds and indeed two white swans that appear from nowhere each time we moor. Maybe they like us or maybe it's the bread scraps that we give them. It's decision time, whether to continue north to Chester and Ellesmere Port or take a right turn along the SUC Middlewich branch. http://www2.mihalis.net/canal/cgi-bin/gazette.cgi?where=$pqeo

Windy Wrenbury

As the title suggests, we are at Wrenbury and the wind has been blowing hard, 11 to 20 mph, all day. We moored here overnight after travelling the last hour in driving rain. Once we got within sight of Wrenbury the rain eased off but was steady on and off all night. Good day to stay put and surf the net.Since last post we have been there done that. Llangollen, that is. Interesting place and we would love to return, It was leisurely on the canal except when I stopped and allowed Rhapsody to drift to the bank. there was an oncoming hire boat about 15 minutes from where they had picked it up. Their boat was zig zagging toward us from 200 yards away and so I pulled over and Jen and I prepared for the engagement with barge poles. Fortunately the carreering vessel had slowed and was on course and thanked us for pulling over and waiting. After they passed we found ourselves stuck in mud and used the poles to push off. We really appreciate the tuition we had on the BCN as it has all been applied in one way or another eg the entrance to some locks has bywash and wind but we can handle it. Some times we are waiting in a queue and marvel at the lack of training given to hire boaters. It borders on outright dangerous. We have seen boats abrest the canal, crew tying the boat to trees on the towpath on blind corners ( unless they really mean to neck cyclists), crew coming to their first lock without a clue and without a lock handle, we came across one hire boat that had lost it's stern mooring rope, some other moored boaters helped us to secure it so we could pass by. So we were at Ellesmere for the 4th of July, Happy Independance Day in USA. Watching TV, Serena has taken her third Wimbledon crown beating Venus then both backing up that evening to take the doubles. Great play from both women. Us? well, we strolled uptown, got some beautiful cheeses, pate, proscutto and equally beautiful beers, a newspaper and retired to relax in our 5 star floating palace. The annual Regatta on the Mere was on sunday and so we broused around then set sail mid afternoon.

We moored at Whixall by the side of a grassy bank and tried to light an english BBQ which is an alfoil tray with charcoal that produces lots of smoke and very little heat. After an hour in between showers of rain, I gave it up and cooked the snags on the stove inside the boat.

Llangollen

No internet available at Ellesmere so we have some catching up to do. Its a quiet little village with small shops but thats all about to change with Tesco building a supermarket to the left of the photo. No doubt that will affect the small traders dramatically. Many people catch fish in the canal just for fun and then release them. roach, bream and eels are plentiful. Then after 2 nights and after stocking the larder we moved on, taking an afternoon cruise to Whittington. There we moored up across from The Narrow Boat Inn. What we didn't realize at first was that we had stopped under a 660kv power line and so we moved the boat as the sound of electricity crackling through the wires was alarming. we walked down the tow path and across a little bridge to the pub for a substantial meal. Next morning we regretted being so close as the incessant hi pitched noise was like a power saw all night. I fell asleep trying to calculate how many volts were being transformed from the power line to Rhapsody, our steel vessel and whether we could rig up a battery charging circuit for some free power.
Yesterday we motored off to Llangollen in Wales. very convoluted canals, pretty countryside and blue and white cows. Also saw a Barbary partridge on one of the stone bridges.

The trip to Llangollen through tunnels and across aquaducts has to be seen to be believed. The passage is slow and we had plenty of time to see the view of the river valleys far below. When you consider that these aquaducts were built before the railways they are a testament to the engineering genius of that era.

Llangollen has a basin where you moor up Marina style and connect to shore based power supply. It's a 5 minute walk to the town and the Bridge Inn was last evenings dining destination.

The Eisteddfod commences this weekend so we will leave tomorrow and get past the aquaduct's before the hoard of weekend boats descend. http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Pont_Cysyllte_Aqueduct.html

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/e/bell2450/canal-boating/aquaducts/index.html