We woke up on Fijord Princess for the last time, packed our bags, cleaned up a bit, and was at the bus station by 9:30 AM.  We are on our way to London for the night and then traveling to Bury St. Edmunds to visit with some friends of our until we leave for our next adventure.

Here we are at the bus stop in Middlewich.

We caught the 9:55 AM bus to Crewe.  We arrived in Crewe at 10:45 AM, but our train to London doesn't leave until 3:30 PM.  Yes there are plenty of trains that leave between now and 3:30 that go to London, but the train companies are having a huge sale right now, so instead of paying £70 pound for the 2 of us, if we wait till 3:30, we pay £9.40 for the 2 of us.

We found the only pub in town that was opened this early and hung out there till 3 PM nursing a couple of pints...they didn't seem to mind.  We caught our 3:30 train and arrived in London just before 6 PM.  We took the Underground to our hotel near the Liverpool Street Station which we leave out of tomorrow morning.  The hotel was in the London Tower area, so we checked in, dropped our bags, and headed out for dinner (pizza) followed by a walk around.

After three weeks in a small, but comfortable, narrowboat bed where I was scrunched against the wall, last night felt extravagant in a king size bed.  The shower was awesome as well being large with unlimited water to use.  Our train to Bury St. Edmunds doesn't leave till noon, so we got to sleep in and relax until heading out around 11 AM for our 15 minute walk to Liverpool Street Station.

It was bright, blue skies across London this morning.

We caught the noon train, arrived in Bury St. Edmunds at 2 PM, and walked to our friends house.  We will hang out here for a few days to decompress and prepare for our next big adventure that starts in 5 days.  We can't wait!

Well, that was a nice night on the canal.  After waking up, showering, and eating breakfast, we set out at 9:23 AM for our last day on the canal.

Here is a typical site along the canal...dairy cows.  Throughout the 3 weeks, we passed by many dairy farms and sheep farms.

Our last day, our last mid-day stop at a town with a pub.  The guide told us to moor by bridge 14 to access the town of Church Minshull and that it is only a half-mile walk.  They didn't tell us that we would have to take our lives in our hands as we walked the short half-mile since there was no sidewalks with 2 bridges and a tunnel that were all one lane so cars / motorcycles / bicycles / were speeding and weaving and jostling their way though these obstacles.  We arrived to the Badger Inn and really needed a pint this time.

Here is the entrance to the Badger Inn with St Bartholomew's Church in the background.  After the pint we actually went inside the church and took a peek.  This church was rebuilt in 1702 after a collapse, but there is evidence of a church standing here since 1541 and possible a Saxon church before then.

Anyway, the pints were delicious and it was time to walk back to the narrowboat, but by an alternate walking trail.  Here is a cool 17th century half-timbered building named "Church Farm House."

We found the entrance to the walking trail.  This will be much more pleasant than the walk here.

Yep...so much better.  Here is the exit of the trail right onto the tow path alongside the canal.

We got back to the boat, made sandwiches for lunch, and were underway at 1:30 PM.  We should only have about 4 hours to go to get back to Middlewich depending on the boat traffic at the last 6 locks.

This is kind of cool.  It is an old horse stable converted into a residential building,  If you zoom in, you can see the old stable doors are still along the side of the building.

Another nice, old brick building along the canal.  Tim liked the shutters.

In the past 3 weeks on the canal we saw many, many ducks, swans, geese, pheasants, herons, some unknown black bird with a red beak, and many other birds.

Here is a nice shot of a bridge with someone fishing on the other side.

This was a nice treat.  The people in the boat waiting for us to go down this lock so they can come up it said that they will work the lock for us.  I think this was the first time we both were able to stay in the boat while going down a lock.

Ahhhh...the welcome to Middlewich sign.  We just have to make a left, go down a set of 3 locks, go past Anderson Boats to a winding hole to turn around, fill our water tank, and then moor for good.

After countless locks, I finally decided to take a video of me working a lock.  Tim already drove the boat into the lock and I have already opened one of the gates to let out water.  I now have to open the second gate, open the doors, and close the gates.  I was able to leave the doors open since a boat was coming the other way.  Typically I would have to close both doors after Tim exited.

Our last water point stop.  The water points all along the canal are provided by the Canal and River Trust.  They provide a key to everyone that registers their boats on the canals.

After getting water, we moored at Anderson Boats so we don't have to move the boat in the morning. We did it.  We made it.  After 3 weeks we completed out narrowboat trip.  To celebrate, I had takeaway Indian food and Tim finished some food we still had on board.  We organized some to prepare to pack in the morning, watched some TV, and went to sleep.  We have to be off the boat by 9 AM tomorrow morning, so we will have an early day to allow for packing and cleaning up a bit.  Until then...

Since we got back to the boat and ate dinner at a reasonable time last night, we were up a bit earlier today.  We showered, ate breakfast, and were underway just before 8:30 AM.  With the set of six Grindley Brook Locks behind us, we only have two more sets that can delay us if other boats are there, and one of those sets are at the end of todays motor.  I guess we will worry about it when the time comes.  For now we will enjoy this beautiful day on the canal.

There are many bridges and locks today, so we decided to share the task.  Now is Tim's turn.  I don't know if you have noticed, but by many of the locks there is a house that the lock master used to live in,  Now many are abandoned or redone into very nice residential houses.

Just putting along.

Every bridge out here seems unique in its own way.

With me driving the boat, Tim got ahold of the phone and starting taking photos of just about everything.  Here ar some of his "masterpieces."

Here we are in Wrenbury.  The bridge behind us is an electric draw bridge that Tim got to do today.  He held up 3 cars and "felt the power."  There are a couple of pub right by this bridge, but they don't open until noon, so we had lunch in the boat and then headed up to Cotton Arms and Dusty Miller for a few half pints before heading back out on the canal around 12:30 PM.

I guess it is Tim's turn again. Crank Tim Crank.

Three hours and five locks after our lunch / pub break in Wrenbury, we arrived at the Hurleston Locks, a set of four locks very closely spaced.  Wait...is that Tim again working the locks...maybe we didn't take turns and Tim did all the work today?  Anyway....this is a pretty cool photo showing we are in lock 2 of 4 and you can see locks 3 & 4 below us.

Here I am exiting a lock with another lock right in front of me.

We made it to the bottom about one hour after entering lock 1, which is expected since each lock takes about 15 minutes to fill / empty as needed; enter the lock; empty / fill as needed; exit the lock.

We have just completed the out and back of the Llangollen Canal, and are now back on the Shropshire Union Canal, the canal that we started on in Middlewich 20 days ago.

Well...look at that...tonight we are moored right in front of The Olde Barbridge Inn...how convenient.  

After mooring up for the night, we relaxed in the boat a bit, then headed to the pub for a couple of half pints.  Tim liked the look of our sitting area in the pub.

We then returned to the boat for dinner, shrimp quesadillas with onions, peppers, & sour cream, blogged some, watched some TV, and went to sleep.  Tomorrow is our last day on the canal, but we will have time to take our time and enjoy the canal.

We woke up and I quickly got dressed and headed out to the delicatessen and bakery to guy from the Black Swan told me to go to.  I picked up a baguette and a couple of fillets of pickled herring with dill and returned to the boat.  Tim was happy about the bread and had some with jam, but the pickled herring was all mine.  I went outside to eat is since I didn't want to stink up the boat.  It was SO GOOD.  I gobbled down the 2 fillet and was very tempted to go back to the delicatessen and get more, but we were ready to go, so I will just have to savor and remember the awesome two little pickled herring fillets I ate.

By the way...here is nice shot of Ellesmere Wharf where we spent last night.  Our boat is the red one.

We took off right at 9 AM and headed out of the wharf and turned left at the end back onto the Llangollen Canal.  Today is another beautiful day on the Llangollen Canal.

Here are some nice old buildings along the canal.  We see these kinds of buildings regularly while travel on the canals.

Oh...here is an interesting story...not long after these photos there is a one mile stretch of the canal that is straighter and wider than anyone part we have seen.  A few days ago, on our way out to Llangollen we actually caught up to another narrowboat here and was able to overtake on this section since this section was so long, straight, and wide.  Well..what are the chances that we caught up to a narrowboat on this same stretch today?  It was 100% since we did catch and overtake another narrowboat in this same stretch of canal.  By the way...in all of the 3 weeks on the canal, we overtook only 3 narrowboats total, so this was quite a coincidence.

Anyway...since Tim enjoyed working some locks yesterday, we thought it would be a good idea for him to work some of the bridges as well.

That was so nice watching Tim do all the work, so we decided to let him continue by working the locks today as well.  He got lucky many times having other people there to help him out.  These people are waiting for us to go down the lock so they can come back up.

It is nice to be captain of the boat and sit back and relax while Tim does all the work.

Even though we had 9 locks and 5 bridges today, we made pretty good time to Grindley Brook at 2:20 PM.  We actually stayed close to here on the way to Llangollen, but the highly recommended pub wasn't open on Monday, so here we are again to ensure we visit the pub.  After last nights late pub visits and late dinner, we decided to head to the pub earlier and arrived at Horse & Jockey just after 3 PM.  

People were right...they had 4 excellent, fresh cask ales available.  

After our 4 half pints we headed back to the boat to relax a bit before eating mussels in butter & garlic sauce, fresh backed rolls, and a nice Belgium blonde.

We watched some TV, blogged, and went to bed...this time after an appropriate amount of time to digest dinner. Tomorrow we make to back to the Shropshire Union Canal and will be only 1 day out of Middlewich, the end of the journey.  But, we still have time to smell the roses, which we plan on doing tomorrow.  Until then...

Another beautiful day with plans of less than 4 hours of traveling.  Since the Llangollen Canal is an out and back, we went out fairly fast and kept note of where we wanted to stop on the way back.  Today's destination, Elesmere Wharf, was one of those places and we are looking forward to it for many reasons.  One reason is there are 3 pubs that look really nice, another reason is there is a huge Tesco supermarket directly in the wharf, and most importantly, there is a laundromat that I can walk to...it is has been a while since I was able to get laundry done.

With a short day we were able to sleep in some, actually cook breakfast (scrambled eggs, fresh rolls, and sautéed mushroom & krab sticks), and get underway at 9:43 AM.

Today we have only 2 locks.  Tim decided that he couldn't go through the entire trip and not do a lock, so he is operating the locks as I have the easier job of operating the boat.

With me in control now, Tim started snapping off photo after photo.  Here are some...he took a lot...of what I picked out of the bunch.

We were getting close to a crowded area, so Tim took back control just in time for me to get this duck family...and even dozen.

Just before the left turn into Ellesmere Wharf, there was a water point, so we took the opportunity to fill up the tank.  After water, we made the left turn under bridge 59 and found a mooring spot right towards the end. Luckily we showed up here early because there was only room for 3 more boats in the wharf and the other 2 spots filled quickly after we arrived.

The engine was run for less than 3.5 hours, so we have to run it another 2.5 hours to properly charge the house batteries.  Tim stayed behind to keep the engine running as I set out to do laundry.  It has been a while since we did laundry, so I wore a only a rain suit to ensure I got all my clothes washed.  By the way...Tim is sitting in the boat in his swimsuit.

After doing laundry, I returned to the boat and relaxed some before leaving for the pubs at 6 PM.  Ellesmere is a cute town.

The first pub was The Swan Inn where we chatted with a local that has lived here all his life.  He ran the delicatessen and bakery across the street after his father passed it down to him.  He now leases the business, but his niece runs the sandwich shop next door.

The next place is call The Vault and is down a basement and was very cool.  They had 6 different local hard ciders, so instead of beer this time I had the strawberry cider and the rhubarb cider.  I drank them half down separately, and then poured them together for a 50/50 mix and that was delicious as well.

We also got to meet the very friendly pub cat that hung out in the beer garden. 

The last pub was the White Hart located inside a half-timbered house and has been here since the 16th century. This place was recommended by the guys we hung out with a few days ago at the Narrow Boat pub.  It was a great place with an incredible selection of real ales on cask and a caramel apple cider.  Awesome.

After three pub we definitely needed dinner.  We returned to the boat and I made fish with special sauce (ketchup & mayonnaise), mash of some sort, & steamed broccoli.  By the way...this photo was take at 9:40 PM!! I guess it is still dinner if eaten before midnight?

Needless to say, we ate dinner, tried to watch some TV to give time to digest, and went to bed.  Tomorrow is another shorter day, so it should be another nice day.  Until then...

We only have 5 hours of traveling today, so we slept in a bit.  I showered, got dressed, and headed to find something fresh baked at one of the bakeries in town.  I got to town around 8:30 AM, but the bakeries I was interested in wasn't opened till 9 AM, so I found a park bench and waited.  At 9 AM I checked out 2 bakeries and nothing really caught my fancy, so back to the boat.  I helped Tim refill the water tanks and we were underway by 9:52 AM.  

Oh...by the way, here is a photo of us moored in the Llangollen Basin.

Since this canal is an out and back, we have already been here on the way, but things did look a bit different heading the other direction.

The first time of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct I tried to make a video, but it didn't' come out very good.  Luckily, I got a second chance. 

So impressive!  Here is one last look back.  That side with just a strip of metal and then the drop....wow!

Just past the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is the town of Froncysyllte.

Since we passed through here yesterday, I knew there was a pub that I wanted to check out, so we ​moored up and walked up to the Aqueduct Inn.  They had a couple of nice real ales on cask and a view down to the canal.

They also had an awesome view of the ​Pontcysyllte Aqueduct from their parking area.

Walking back to the boat we saw this sign.  I have no idea.  Any thoughts????

Some more beautiful scenery on the way to Chirk Aquaduct.  Even a video to make this blog a bit more interesting. 

After Pontcysyllte Aqueduct you would think this smaller one wouldn't be exciting, but I kind of like it a bit more since it runs along a viaduct.

A couple more shots of the Chirk Aqueduct that links Wales to England.

We stopped about 1 mile passed the Chirk Aqueduct close to Poachers, a pub.  We noticed this area on the way out and it looked like a nice place to stop and spend the night.  We moored up, hung out in the boat a bit since we had to run the engine for one more hour, and then had a pint at Poachers.  We returned to the boat, ate dinner, then headed to The Plough Inn.  It made a nice after dinner walk of about 15 minutes each way.  We shared a pint and a bottle of ale, and then returned to the boat for the night.

Tomorrow is another shorter day, so it should be fun.  Until then...

Today promises to be one of the highlights of our narrowboat holiday.  We woke up, had breakfast and was underway by 8 AM.  It was an early day because we have a lot of features on the canal that can take time to get through depending on the number of boats out there.

The morning started out chilly.  You can see steam coming off the canal.  By the way...that is the pub we hung out in yesterday.

It may be a chilly morning, but it is all sunshine and blue skies.

Less than an hour into our day, we arrived at 2 locks.  They weren't too annoying since it has been about 20 miles since the last lock.  Although, when we arrived there was 2 other boats waiting to enter the first lock.  The first boat got through and I helped the family in the second boat work the lock.  This was their first lock since being on the boat since yesterday.  After they cleared I emptied it, Tim entered, I filled it, Tim exited, and I walked on to the next lock.  The second was a repeat of the first with helping the family then getting us through.

There was a convenient water point at the top of the second lock, so we took the opportunity to use it.

It was now 10 AM and we were about to enter the 11 miles of the Llangollen Canal listed as a World Heritage site.   And from the beauty, it is no wonder.

Just past the town of Chirk is the Chirk Aqueduct followed closely by the Chirk Tunnel.  The Chirk Aqueduct, completed in 1801, 40 feet long, and 70 feet high.  What is kind of cool is that it runs parallel to a railway viaduct.

I jumped off the boat and got a photo of Tim steering Fjord Princess across the ​Chirk Aqueduct.

Another cool thing about the Chirk Aqueduct is that it takes you into Wales.

As soon as you exit the Aqueduct, it is time to enter the 460 yard Chirk Tunnel.  Because the tunnel is straight, you can look into and tell if another boat is coming, so there is no need for the tunnel to be manned or have a time schedule.

We exited the tunnel exactly 10 minutes later.

On the other side of the tunnel we entered a beautiful wooded area of the canal.

This canal is quite popular.  There were more boats around than we have seen since boarding Fjord Princess over 2 weeks ago.

We arrived at the next highlight 1.5 hours later...the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.  This is the true highlight of this canal and the reason there are so many boater and pedestrians in this area.  The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, completed in 1805, is only 12 ft wide, 336 yards long, and 126 feet tall.  It is the longest aqueduct in Great Britain and the highest canal aqueduct in the world.

No...we don't have a drone to capture this image...I stole this photo from the Canal & River Trust website to show you what this amazing aqueduct looks like.

Wow!  After the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct we continued to experience amazing scenery.

Oh...this part of the canal is a 0.3 mile section that is so narrow that only one boat can travel though it at a time.  The problem is that it is on a curve and you can't see around it to tell if there is another boat coming.  Signs state that you should send someone ahead to ensure the canal is clear.  On our boat, that someone is me.  So, Tim pulled over and I hopped out.  I had to go almost the entire distance to see that it was clear, but the issue is that we only have 1 phone, so I had to run back to the point that Tim could see me and signal to him the all clear, and then run back to the end to ensure another boat doesn't enter the section.  OY!  I am earning that pint tonight.

The advantage of me running ahead is that I reached the epic end of the Llangollen Canal, the town of Llangollen, before Tim.  Wait...is that really an advantage?  I guess I am just trying to find the silver lining in the last 10 mantes of stressful running around.

We continued to the end of the canal and parked in a marina...this is a first for us.  We have always only moored the boat on the side of the canal.

We got settled in and then left for the walk to town where we hit 3 pubs for the real ale.  The best of the pubs was the last pub we hit, The Corn Mill.  A mill has stood here for 700 years, although the building how it now stands is from 1786.  Beside it being a cool building, they had 5 real ales on cask!

Check out the cool view out the window of The Corn Mill.

OK...we had to go and see the view up close.  Wow...the town of Llangollen, Wales is beautiful.

After we finished the ales, we walked 0.7 miles to Aldi's to pick up some groceries, then walked back to the boat which felt like a very long walk carrying all these groceries with us.  I then made pizza that we bought in Aldi's, I blogged, and then we went to sleep.   What an incredible day this was.  Tomorrow we get to do it all again since we made it to the end of the canal and now we have to return.

We had a good night sleep.  It was a quiet and pleasant mooring.  We plan on going a pretty good distance today, so we should get an earlier start, but I feel like cooking eggs for breakfast.  So, I made eggs and we didn’t get off until 9:20 AM.
The good news for the day is that we don’t have any locks to worry about, although we do have 3 bridges, but those don’t take the time or effort of locks.  The first lift bridge was only 16 minutes after we left and the second was 15 minutes later.  We got very lucky and there were a boat ahead of us that opened the first bridge.  I managed the second bridge on my own.

With only one more bridge left and no locks, we could sit back…and just enjoy the scenery of our boat ride for the rest of the day.

We actually arrived at our planned stop at 4:00 PM, way earlier that we have planned.  We thought we should continue on, but the next town would take at least 2 - 2.5 hours and the weather says it could rain for the next 2 hours.  This made it a pretty easy decision to just stay where we are.  Plus, there is a pub right across from our boat making the decision to stay even easier.

Since it was only 4 PM, we head straight to the pub.   We went in and ordered a couple of pints of the only real ale they had.  As we were looking for a place to sit, a table of regulars invited us to join them.  We wound up spending the next 2.5 hours hanging out and talking to this awesome group of men.  For tow of the men, we could barely understand them, but the more beer we had, the easier it was.  What a great night, but we needed to eat, so we headed back to the boat.
​
I made breaded fish, chips (fries) left over from a few days ago, broccoli, and special sauce (mayo & ketchup).

We thought about heading back to the pub, but we felt more and more tired after dinner, so stayed in.  We watched “Belfast” which I had on a thumb drive and blogged a bit before going to sleep.  Tomorrow has a lot of highlights, so it should be a good day.  Util then….

We had to wake up earlier than usual because the first thing we have to go through is a flight of 5 locks that are know to get very busy and could hold us up.  We woke up, ate breakfast, and was underway by 8:15.  It should have been earlier, but last yesterday was a long day and we needed some rest. 
At least it is a beautiful morning.  Here are some shots that started the day:

We arrived at Hurleston Junction in less than one hour.  This is where we turn right off the Shropshire Union Canal and onto the Llangollen Canal. This is also where we could be held up by the Hurleston Locks, a flight of 5 locks, climbing a total of just over 34 feet in 0.5 miles.
When we arrived, there was a boat turning towards the locks from the other direction, so we quickly followed them into the “holding area.”  As we were doing this, we noticed a boat close behind us wanting to turn in as well, as well as another boat coming from the other direction that seemed like they had the same idea.

After a bit or waiting, we entered the first of 5 locks 15 minutes later.

This set of locks really is an engineering marvel, and makes for a great photo!

The cool part of these locks is that everyone was there helping each other out.  When the people in the lock above us was done, and they knew another boat wasn’t coming in the opposite direction, they started draining the lock for us.  This kind gesture made we do the same for the boat behind us, and I’m assuming the kindness passed its way down the canal for the rest of the day.
With everyone’s help around us, we made it though the flight of 5 locks in 48 minutes.  A well placed water station at the top of the locks caught our fancy, and we refilled our water tank for the next 15 minutes.

After the first 5 locks, we had another 4 locks followed by a couple of lift bridges, one in which I got to stop traffic…oh the power!

This is a pretty common situation where there is a bridge directly followed by a lock. This is Quoisley Lock, located in incredible surroundings.

We passed under a bridge, and arrived to the bottom of the first of 3 Grindley Brook Locks at 4:39 and smoothy moved up the first 3 locks being lucky enough to pass one boat between locks, so at least 1 lock was in our favor. 

When we got to the top of the first 3 locks, there was only 1 boat in front of us waiting to get into the staircase lock…not too bad.  
We waited about 15 minutes when it was our time to enter the staircase of 3 locks.  Here is a sign to explain how to operate the staircase of 3.  Pretty much, the top 2 locks have to be full and the bottom one has to be empty.  We then enter the bottom (empty) lock, fill it with the water in the middle lock, enter the middle lock, fill it with the water in the top lock, enter the top lock, and fill it with the water at canal level when we can exit onto the canal.

It was now almost 6 PM, so we decided to call it a day and moored close to the top of the locks.  We had mussels for dinner…yum.

We woke up, ate breakfast, and was underway by 8:40 AM.  We could have left earlier, but we don't want to be in Middlewich before noon, so it gave it a little more time this morning.  We have now been on the boat for 2 weeks and will return to Anderson Boats, in Middlewich where we started, to get a pump-out, refuel (diesel & propane), fill water, and drop off dirty towels/sheets.  

It is a beautiful morning.  Here is a view off the back of our boat and we just passed moored narrowboats.

After 12 days, we have returned to Middlewich after completing the Cheshire Ring (97 miles & 92 locks), plus a spur to Whaley Bridge (5 miles), plus a failed spur to Etruria (10 miles & 2 locks).

Here we are passing the AirBnB we stayed at, right around the corner from a chippy.

We arrived back to Anderson Boats around 12:30 PM and received all the needed services.  We then turned around and stopped for lunch and to pick up a few groceries.  

We are pretty excited about our next week.  We are going to do the Llangollen Canal which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful canals in the UK.

We headed out of Middlewich...or at least tried to head out.  I guess I didn't mention that we had to come down the 3 Middlewich locks to get back to Anderson Boats.  We didn't have much issue getting down, but when we turned around, there was a bit of a traffic jam going back up.  

Here are the 2 boats that are in front of us trying to get up the 3 Middlewich locks.

Finally, after 40 minutes, we were able to enter Lock 1 of 3.

We made it up those 3 locks and though we were set and finally on our way, but nope.  We still had one more lock to got through, Warble Lock.  To get to this lock, you had to make a 90 degree turn under a fairly tight tunnel.  You can see us past this tunnel in the below photo.  As we approached the turn, there was a rental boat trying to make the turn.  I think it literally took them 20 minutes to make the turn and get into the lock as we watch in amazement.  To make matters worse, there was another boat that got to the lock before us, so again we are third in line and have to wait.  It took us 45 minutes to finally enter Warble lock, and it is already almost 4 PM.  

We had plans to make it to Barbridge Junction, but it doesn't seem like there is enough time to make it there before sunset.  Oh well.. at least the scenery us amazing.

It was getting late and it looked like we weren't going to make it to Barbridge Junction, so we changed our goal to make it through one more lock and stop just past it. 

Finally, at 7:45 PM, we made it through the last lock and was moored by 8PM.

We were pretty tired once we tied up.  The good thing is that we ate dinner on the run.  I had bought a couple of prepared vegetarian lasagna's, so I popped them in the oven and we ate them as we were underway.  Now all that was left to do was some dishes, relax, do some blogging, and go to sleep.

​Tomorrow we have to wake up a bit early because there is a set of 4 locks as you enter the Llangollen Canal that is know to get very busy throughout the day.  Hopefully we will more successful getting up those locks than we did getting up the Middlewich locks.  We will see...

Wow....the geese were loud all night long making it hard to sleep soundly.  We moored near a lake, and we noticed the geese, but we didn't think they would be make noise all night.  Lesson learned.

​We have a long day today.  We have to get back through the Harecastle Tunnel and then go though 26 locks…yes…26 locks…before stopping for the night.  We woke up earlier than usual, ate breakfast, and was moving by just after 7:30 AM.  

We arrived at Harecastle just before 8 AM, as they were opening.  There was one other boat there, and after the briefing from he tunnel keeper, we were back in the tunnel by 8:15 AM.  They let the first boat in and then we followed 2 minutes later.  Within 5 minutes, we were close to catching up with the boat in front of us, so we had to slow down.  This time it took us the full 40 minutes to get though the tunnel…darn slow boat.  Oh well…you are not on a canalboat to go anywhere fast.  

We made it back to the intersection we passed yesterday and went straight onto the Trent & Mersey Canal.

We immediately hit Lock 41, the first of 26 locks.  We entered the lock at 9:06 AM.

You know that boat that was in front of us in the tunnel?  Well, they are going this way as well, and because they are in front of us, all the locks are empty when we get there and we have to fill them which takes time and more work for me.  Finally, a few locks later, another boat was coming in the other direction.  This means the lock will be prepared for us and we can just enter.   

At 11:25 AM we were 10 locks in.  Only 16 more to go.

Onward to more and more locks of which none of them were set for us.  More work for me and more time waiting for the locks to fill before being able to empty them.

Finally, lock 61…20 locks in, 6 to go, and it was in our favor.  This is what I like to see when I approach a lock.  We arrived to Lock 61 at 2:24 PM, We have been doing these locks over 5 hours ago.

And here we are….Lock 66, the final lock at 3:20 PM.

Here are the totals:  26 Locks; 7 miles; 6 hours, 14 minutes.

We arrived at our mooring point just 10 minutes later, in Wheelock.  I pretty much collapsed in the chair and had a well deserved gin & tonic.  Instead of cooking dinner, we treated ourselves to a chippy just a 5 minute walk and brought it back to the boat to eat.  After dinner we headed to the pub just down the road and had some half-pints of real ale.

After the half-pints, I asked if they could make a Snakebite & Black, a drink a friend of mine said I had to try.  They made me one.  It is some blackberry current with half beer and half cider.  It is a pretty color and tasted pretty good..a bit sweet, but good.

After the pub, back to the boat to relax, and go to sleep.  What a day!

Today started out great.  We woke up a bit earlier than usual, ate breakfast, and was underway by 9 AM. We arrived at the first lock of the day just 5 minutes after leaving our overnight mooring.  There is nothing like a lock first thing in the morning to get your heart pounding.  We were in and out of the lock smoothly, and continued on this beautiful morning.

Check out this mama duck.  There are 17 ducklings….must be duckling daycare, because there is no way all those babies are hers…or are they?

The beautiful canal.

The tunnel is too narrow for boats to pass, so there are tunnel keepers who tell you when it is safe to enter.  We only had to wait a few minutes and then they let us in.  We entered at 9:54 AM and exited at 10:28 AM.  It only took us 34 minutes!  We beat the average time of 40 minutes.  No…we didn’t win any prizes.  ​

There was a water point right outside the tunnel, so we took the opportunity to top up.

The canal cuts right through Middleport, a place that was famous at one time for pottery.  Here are some of the remnants still standing along the canal:

Some action shots of me captaining the Fjord Princess:

We arrived at Etruria Junction and made a let up towards the Caldon Canal.  We are going to go up the Caldon Canal to Froghall, 1.5 days up, and then turn back to here and continue on the Chesire Ring. 

As we were turning a curve to enter the Bedford street Staircase Lock, some guys on the shore said that the lock was closed.  We delayed and I looked at the website that shows closing and didn’t see it listed, so we continued. 

Check it out.  It is a staircase lock.  The photo of the sign tells you about it.  The locks were set as they are supposed to and we entered the bottom lock.

I then closed the gates and filled the lock as the top one drained.  We got the the top of lock 1 and I went to fill lock 2 but there were padlocks on the gates.  WHAT?!?  We called the Canal & River Trust and they said that the Caldon Canal is closed.  Their website is so bad that I couldn’t find the information.  So, I emptied the lock and Tim had to back up the boat for about 100 yard, which isn’t an easy thing.

We went back through Middleport, and was forced to stop there at 1:40 PM because we need to go back through the tunnel, but you can only do it between 8 AM and noon.  Oy…a lot of time wasted.  Oh well.  I had some work to do to plan our trip to Greece.  We are flying there on 30 April and I have’t made any lodging arrangements yet.  I know…our crazy life…as we are on this holiday, I am planning our next.
So, I did some planning, we ate dinner (mushroom tortellini & garlic bread), then headed out to a brewery about a 1 mile walk.

After the brewery, we stopped at a market to pick up a few things, then returned to the boat.  After some blogging, we went to bed.  Our plan it arrive at the tunnel just before they open at 9 AM and try to get through it quick, and hope to make up some time.

Until then..

Today we have Bosley Lock Flight to complete first thing this morning, so we got up earlier than usual, ate breakfast, and had the motor running by 8:15 AM.  By then, the boat in front of us was ready to move out and there were 3 boats behind us waiting on line.  The lock actually opened 10 minutes early, at 8:20 AM.  The first boat entered, and in 10 minutes, we were in Lock 1 of 12.  This is going to be fun.

By the way, the Bosley Lock Flight has 12 locks that are spread over a distance of just 1 mile, and lower the level of the canal by 118 feet.

Because there were so many of us going through the locks at the same time, we all helped each other.  The boat behind us had 7 people aboard.  When they saw that there was only 2 of us, one of them stayed with me the entire flight to help open and close gates and door.  It was great.

Here are some highlights of the flight.

Finally, just 2 hours later, we were down the flight of 12 locks.

We continued south on the canal, but we can’t go too far today because there is tunnel we need to go through and it is only opened from 9 AM - noon and we can’t make it there by then.  So, we are going to stop just short of the bridge in the town Scholar Green, just 9 miles away.

This allows us time to stop in Congleton to buy some groceries.  Here are some scenes on the way to Congleton:

We arrived in Congleton right at noon.  We had lunch (me: cup of noodles; Tim: chicken cold cut sandwich), and then walked into town.  For some reason, I thought the walk to the Morrisons was only 15 minutes, but it wound up being 20 minutes, and it was all down hill.  Which mean, when we have the groceries we will have to climb back up the hill.  Oh well…I guess we can use the exercise.

We arrived back at the boat at 2:30 PM after a successful shopping trip and was back on the canal soon after.  This really is a beautiful section of the canal.

We arrived to Scholar Green and was moored by 4 PM.  We relaxed some and then ate dinner (vegan chicken quesadillas).  There are two nice pubs a 10 minute walk, so we headed out and first hit The Travellers Rest and had a half-pint of the 3 real ales.  I realized when we were done with the beers that I forgot to take a photo, so here we are, sans beer.

Check out the next pub we went to... Bleeding Wolf...built in the 1930’s with a thatched roof

The had 3 real ales, so we had a half-pint of each.

After the half-pints, we headed back to the boat, watched TV, blogged, and went to sleep.  Tomorrow we get to go through Harecastle Tunnel…that will be fun.

Oh...I took this photo of our Scholar Green mooring the next morning from a bridge just behind us:

Today we can’t go very far.  There is a flight of locks called Bosley Lock Flight, that is closed until tomorrow (Wednesday).  Our plan is to go from here to the first lock, and try to be one of the first out when they open at 8:30.  The first lock from here is only about 3 hours from Bollington, so we slept in, had a leisurely morning, had a late breakfast (egg sandwiches), and got underway at 12:30 PM.

This part of the canal is very beautiful.

We stopped in Gurnett at 1:50 PM, just 1.3 hours after starting.  There are two nice sounding pubs just off the canal that we thought we would check out.

The first is Sutton Hall, a one time manor built 480 years ago!  That’s the 1500’s…crazy!

We got a half-pint of each real ale they had, and sat in comfy, leather chairs by the fireplace.

The next pub was a 10 minute walk, Ye Olde Kings Head.  We were hungry and hoped they had lunch, but they just stopped serving at 3 PM, so we walked back up to the boat and made sandwiches (me: tuna; Tim: Chicken cold cut).  We then returned to Ye Olde Kings Head and had 2 half pints of the real ale they had.

We returned the the boat and set off at 4:50 PM, 3 hours after stopping here…that was a nice afternoon.

We only have 1.3 hours to go though this beautiful countryside and we were ready.

We passed some well decorated narrowboats along the way.  We especially liked the narrowboat with a model of itself on the roof.

There was a bit of excitement today.  There is the Royal Oak Swing Bridge that I have to stop traffic for before swinging it.  A car pulled up right when the gate went down and soon after, 2 ore cars arrived.  Hurry bridge…hurry.

We finally arrived at the area of our mooring point, but first we filled up our water tank.

We finally moored up just before the lock with only one boat in front of us.  I looked out the window and look what I saw…a cute duck family.

We ate lunch a bit late, so dinner wasn’t until 8:30 PM.  Tonight we had breaded fish with special sauce (ketchup & mayonnaise) and roasted sweet potatoes.

We watched a bit of TV, blogged, and then went to bed.  Tomorrow will be an earlier morning than usual since there is only one boat in front of us and the Bosley Lock Flight opens at 8:30 AM.  Until then...

We woke up, at breakfast, and was underway by 9:30 AM.  To start, we have to backtrack to Marple Junction and then turn left on the Macclesfield Canal.  Here are some scenes from us heading back the 6.5 miles:

Finally, after just over 2 hours, we were back at Marple Junction at the top of the Marple Locks Flight.

When we got to the junction, we turned left off of the Peak Forest Canal and onto the Macclesfield Canal.

The next stretch on the canal was beautiful, but it was very windy.  We were having some trouble controlling the boat and actually had to go down the canal crabbing some of the way.

Do you see me in control above?  About 1 minute later, a narrowboat was headed towards us out of control.  It was a fairly short boat and the wind was taking it every which way.  They kept coming towards us, so Tim took control of the boat and decided to land the boat on the right side of the canal to try to just avoid the whole situation.  They finally passed us after a little tap, and then a narrowboat that has been behind us for a bit was forced right as well.  It seemed like no big deal until we tried to relaunch.  We landed between two moored narrowboats, so we had to push the nose out to get out of the spot, but the wind was so strong that we couldn't get off the wall.

We, along with the boat that was following us, were stuck there for about 30 minutes when finally, people came out of the boats we were stuck between, and helped us push off the wall.  We were free and finally underway again.

Finally, after fighting wind for a couple of hours, we made it to Bollington by 3:30 PM.  We were somewhat in a hurry to get here because we need to do laundry and the laundromat closes at 5 PM.  As soon as we were moored, I grabbed the laundry and walked to town as Tim completed the mooring checklist.

I arrived at the Washing Well at 4 PM, and threw in the load.  The Wishing Well was pretty small with only 4 washers and dryers.  It is manned, and you don't put money in the machines, you just pay the man after you are done.  He told me the washing machine will take 20 minutes, so I headed next door for a pint.

By the way....I did laundry as I learned to do it on the Pacific Crest Trail, with just my rainsuit on with nothing on underneath....ha.  I got the laundry done and walked back to the boat.  I caught a glimpse of the boat as i was walking back.  Our boat is the front one of the two.

Tonight for dinner we had Belgium-style mussels and fresh baked bread.  We just so happen to have a bottle of Belgium-style English Ale on hand.

After dinner we headed out to a pub that serves beer from Bollington Brewing Company, just down the street.  When we exited the boat, we saw the big stack in the background, so snapped a photo.

That is the canal up above this tunnel.  They built the canal way up there to avoid having to build a flight of locks up and down to get into and out of Bollington.

Finally...we made it to Vale Inn and had a flight of Bollington Brewery beer.

After the flight, we headed back to the boat, blogged some, watched some TV, and went to bed. Tomorrow we don't have very far to go, so it should be a good day.

Today was a fun day.  We get to do the famous...at least in these parts...Marple Lock Flight.  But, before we get to locks, we have the Hyde Bank Tunnel (308 yards).  It took us about 3 minutes to get through it.

Cool tunnel, but we will soon get to cross over a aqueduct, a bit better than a tunnel since we can see where we are going.  Here is Some nice scenery between the Hyde Bank Tunnel and the Marple Aqueduct. 

Here we are on the Marple Aqueduct. It is 105 yard long and almost 100 feet high.

I had to empty the lock, open the doors, wait for Tim to go into the lock, close the doors, refill the lock, open the doors to let Tim exit the lock.  Here are a couple of videos of the process:

The ultimate way for water to be saved in these locks is if one boat is exits a lock as another boat enters it.  This makes it so that the lock doesn't have to be filled or emptied since the lock is now in your favor.  Since these locks are only opened 3 days a week, there were plenty of boats going up and down the flight, allowing for more boats passing between locks.

The Marple Lock Flight consists of 16 locks.  It took us from 9:15 AM to 12:15 PM...3 hours...not too bad.  Here are some more photos of those 3 hours of climbing up the 16 locks of Marple Lock Flight:

Wow...what an adventure.  It was nice that there were Canal and River Trust volunteers on many of the locks to help.  Many of the locks were in our favor and we could just exit one lock and enter the next without waiting.  When we did have to wait for the lock to empty before entering, there were many people around making it a very social event.  It was pretty fun  In all, we traveled up 16 locks for a total of 209 feet in about 1 mile.  WOW...what an engineering feat completed in 1804!

Right after the last lock, we hit an intersection of canals.  We will return to this intersection tomorrow and go to the left onto the Macclesfield Canal, but today we kept right and stayed on the Peak Forest Canal to travel to the end at Whaley Bridge where we will spend the night.

Tim likes this description from our guide book...the Pearson Guide.

The Pearson Guide was accurate.  This stretch from the intersection of Macclesfield Canal to Whaley Bridge was beautiful.

Oh...we also get to experience 3 bridges on this route.  The first bridge was similar to the first lift bridge I operated a few days ago.  It lifts as I crank the windless.

The next bridge was electric, so no cranking or pushing required.  We were lucky enough to arrive at the bridge the same time another boat was about to under.  Their crew was already ashore and had lifted the bridge and then waved us through.  Nice.  

The third bridge was a swing bridge similar to one that I did a couple of days ago.  Another boat approached as I swung the bridge open, so we let them go ahead.

That's it.  No more work for me.  16 locks and 3 bridges today.  I really have earned the beer I plan on drinking tonight!  Here is some more photos of the gorgeous scenery of this part of the Peak Forest Canal:

We made it to the end, Whaley Bridge at 3:00 PM.  There was a water point at the end where we needed to turn around, so we got water, turned around (not an easy task in a 53 foot boat), and then moored at 3:45 PM for the night.  It didn't seem like the best mooring spot since it was near a road and the foot path seemed very busy, but it is were we are, so we are staying.  According to Google Maps, there is a great taphouse in town, so we headed there to have a pint before dinner.  We arrived at The Whaley Nook Tap Room and was not disappointed.  They had 4 real ales on cask, so instead of deciding, we go a half pint of each. 

Not only was the beer excellent, the people at the pub were really cool as well.  We made some new friends and hung out drinking beer there for close to 2 hours.  We returned to the boat starving and had breaded cod with special sauce (ketchup & mayo) and stir fry veggies.

There was one more highly recommended pub in town, so after dinner we headed out to The Goyt Inn.  Again, the reviews were spot on.  They had 4 real ales on cask, so again we got a half pint of each.

We also caught the end of quiz night.  The questions were very difficult, especially for us since many of the questions were about British TV and music.  We again made friends...this time with a woman that was from Maine, but married a Brit and now lives in Berlin.  Traveling is awesome.  We love meeting and talking to people.

That is it.  We are done.  It was a long and physical day with all the locks and bridges.  We returned to the boat, did some blogging, and then went to bed.  Tomorrow shouldn't be too bad of a day, but we will see.

We had an interesting night with young people yelling and carrying on at 3 AM which sounded like it was right outside our boat.  I guess kids will be kids, and I’m sure they didn’t realize we were sleeping on the boat since there are many, many narrowboat moored to the shore without anyone in them.  OK…I will give them the benefit of the doubt. 

Luckily, we weren’t in a hurry to get out since we only plan about 2.5 hours of being underway today.  You see, there is a flight of locks called Marple Lock Flight that is only open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, so we have to time it right to not arrive there too early.  Bad for our schedule, but good for us stopping in towns and finding good pubs.
​
We slept in a bit and woke around 9 AM.  There is an Industrial Museum right across from our mooring that we plan to visit before we take off today.  Tim is quite excited. Me…well..whatever.  We arrived at the museum around 10:20 AM and didn’t really expect much, but it wound up actually pretty interested and way bigger than we expected.  Here are some photos from the museum:

We left the museum and had a good view of our boat on mooring:

Onward we go at 11:30 AM.  Here is the first duck family we have seen this trip:

We made it to our very first draw bridge ever.  It required my windless to crank the bridge up.  It wasn’t difficult to turn, but it took a lot of cranks to make it raise a bit at a time.

We made it to the town of Hyde just 1 hour later and had to stop since we needed to resupply our groceries some and there was mention of a good pub.  First the pub, that did not disappoint.  It had 5 real cask ales of which we sampled 4 of them.  Pretty yummy.

Oh…did I mention that the name of the pub is Cheshire Ring?  This is the name of the route we are taking on the narrowboat.  I guess it was meant to be that we stopped here.

Next we popped across the street to the Aldi’s and resupplied our fridge.  We should now have enough to get us through the next 5 days.  

Back to the boat as we continue our way to Romiley. 

Oh…one fun thing today…Woodley Tunnel, a 176 yard tunnel that only took 1.5 minutes, but it was fun.

We made it to our mooring in Romiley at 4:20…5 hours after leaving Ashton-under-Lyme, but with the stop in Hyde, we only ran the motor for about 3 hours.  We are supposed to run the boat for at least 6 hours a day to keep our house batteries charged, so we kept the engine running for a couple of more hours while preparing and eating dinner (mushroom tortellini with garlic bread)

At around 6:30 PM we decided that the engine ran enough and we headed out.  There are 2 pubs in town that are supposed to have good cask ale.  The first is Spread Eagle that only had 2 cask ale available, but they were very good.

Next we walked to Duke of York that had e cask ales available of which we had two.

We got back to the boat around 9, worked on the blog and read some before going to bed.  We have a long day today and need to wake up earlier than usual.  We will see you tomorrow.  

Today is going to be exhausting.  We only have about 6 miles to go, but it will take the entire day since we have 18 locks!  Luckily I did get a great nights sleep and after a shower and breakfast, we left Manchester at 9 AM.  It was a little chilly, but there was blue skies, so we won't complain.

Lock 1 done...only 17 more to go...OY!  We got the first three locks done by 10 AM and we were feeling good.  The next set of locks, Locks 4-7, were started at 10:15 AM and were completed at 11:22 AM. During that time, we passed by Manchester City's Etihad Stadium in Manchester.   It's those tall pillars with cables in the background.  

Now after 7 locks, I'm still feeling pretty good...11 to go!

LWe started the next set of locks (Locks 8-16) at 11:30 PM. Before reaching Lock 8, we passed was the National Cycling Centre.  We have definitely stopped to watch people go around the velodrome, but it is currently closed for renovations.

We are in double digits now...Lock 11, with lock 12 very close by.  As I was operating Lock 11 I decided that if Lock 12 had to be emptied, then we would stop between the locks and eat some lunch.  I was getting pretty tired and hungry by now.

Well...12 was empty, so Tim was able to enter it quickly.  When we got to 13, it was full, so lunch break it was ((tuna sandwich for me, chicken breast sandwich for Tim).  We stopped for 30 minutes at 1 PM, and continued up the canal with 6 locks to go. We made it through Lock 16 at 2:27 PM, so Locks 8 - 16 took us 3 hours with a 30 minute lunch break.

After Lock 16 we came to our very first swing bridge.  Instead of the bridge drawing, it spins 90 degrees using the winch handle.

Here is Lock 17 with the last lock seen in the distance.  There was a bunch of kids in kayaks hanging out right before Lock 18. 

Finally...the last of 18 locks. We did it...we made it.  And what a nice setting for the last lock of the day, Droylsden.  What a nice looking town.

From Lock 1 to Lock 18 it took us from 9 AM to 3:30 PM.  That's a long day with a lot of work.  Just past the last lock there was a water point, so we stopped there to fill up.  Here is Tim showing off his torn out rainsuit.  We bought some duct tape to fix it, but hadn't got to it by this point.

We now have about 40 minutes till we make it to our stopping point for the day.  How cute it this photo of a bridge over the canal?

We were so close to our stopping point and then it started to rain...or is it snow...or is it hail?!?  We have no idea, but we do know that we need to stop for the night and get out of this weather.

We found a great place to moor, right near the center of Aston-Under-Lyne, a very quaint looking town.  We as quickly as we could tied up and got inside with the heat turned up to escape the crazy weather still on going.  We ate dinner (baked cod filets with potato, carrot, and swede mash...what is a swede anyway?).  

After dinner we walked into town to find a pint of real ale on cask.  We found instead a somewhat loud bar, with no real ale, but we had a pint anyway of something cold and bubbly.  Afterwards, back to the boat to do some blogging and then off to sleep.  Until tomorrow...

As you can see from the title of this blog, we didn't go anywhere today...at least not on the narrowboat. Since we are not going anywhere, we have to run the diesel engine for 6 hours to charge our house batteries.  The house batteries run the fridge as well as all the lights, the heater, and the water pump...all very important things.  We ate breakfast and then I ran to the market to resupply as Tim sat on the boat to allow the engine to continue running.  We then hung out on the boat reading and surfing the internet until 2:30 PM.  We walked to a Dim Sum restaurant that was really good.  I have been craving Dim Sum for some time now, but it is really hard to find.  After lunch, we walked to Cloudwater Brew Company and then a couple of doors down to Track Brewing Company.  Both had delicious beers.

We then headed back to the boat with a slight detour to purchase and umbrella and a couple of frozen pizzas for dinner.  We got back to the boat, I heated up some left over chips (french fries) and cooked the pizzas.  We watched some TV and called it a night around 11 PM.

Tomorrow is a big day.  We have 18 locks to do!  Wow...I better get a good nights sleep.

Today should be an interesting day.  We are going to go through the center of Manchester.  We don't know what to expect, but we expect it to be quite different than traveling the countryside.  We set off at 9 AM, and made our first stop at just 5 minutes later.  We moored the boat and walked south to Dunham Massey Brewing Company.  After a 10 minute walk we arrived.  This brewery doesn't have a tasting room, you can only buy bottles to takeaway.  We planning on buying 4 bottles, to make it easy to carry one bottle in each of our hands, but they had such a nice selection, so we wound up buying 12 bottles.

Here are some photos from the next 1.5 hours.

We must be approaching Manchester. Here we are passing Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United Football Club.

We are definitely getting closer...the buildings are getting bigger. 

We made it to the start of our Manchester crossing, but first, we needed to fill our water tank.

After getting water, we continued on and arrived at our first of 9 locks in Manchester.  We had many people looking on as I worked the lock. Everything about this lock was different than others we have done.  The crank on the gate was different, and the doors were opened using the crank and a chain & pulley system.  I managed to figure it all out, and we were in and out of the lock somewhat smoothly.

One lock down, 8 more to go.  Here are some photos and a video of this crazy adventure:

After nine challenging and tiring locks, we found an awesome place to moor.  We were tied up and ready to relax at 6 PM.

We were pretty happy to find a pleasant mooring in Manchester.  We were a bit worried about what we were going to find.  We cracked open a couple of the beers we bought this morning...was it really just this morning?  It feels like it was so long ago.  We then ate dinner (shrimp quesadilla) and watched some TV.  After looking at the map and the weather, we decided to stay at this mooring tomorrow.  It is supposed to rain all day and be pretty chilly.  Plus, there is a couple of breweries close by and a dim sum restaurant.  

We woke around 7:30 AM, ate breakfast, and was underway by 9:15 AM.  One of the highlights of the day, actually three highlights of the day, are three tunnels that we get to go through.  The first tunnel (Barnton Tunnel) was only 1/2 hour after setting out today. This tunnel is 572 yards and operates on a first come, first serve basis.  When you arrive at the tunnel, you look up I, and if it is clear, you can enter it.  We arrived at the tunnel at 9:45 and exited 11 minutes later.

Five minutes later we arrived at the second tunnel of the day, Saltersford Tunnel.  At 424 yards, it is shorter than the first tunnel, but there is a bend in the tunnel, making it hard to see if someone is coming the other way.  Because of this, there are set times that you can enter the tunnel based on which direction you are going. Northbound boats (us) can enter between the hour and 20 minutes after; southbound can enter between the half-hour and 20 minutes after.  We were lucky with the timing and were able to enter without waiting just after 10:00 AM and exited 9 minutes later.

When we exited the tunnel we were greeted with an Ukraine flag.

For the next 2 hours the canal meandered through beautiful countryside.

We arrived at the third and final tunnel of the day at 11:51 PM.  Preston Brook Tunnel is 1,239 yards and can only be entered going north between the hour and 10 after.  After waiting for 9 minutes, we entered right at noon and exited 15 minutes later.

We passed a couple of interesting things next.  Here is an old flour warehouse converted into flats in Preston Brook.

Some more cool scenery & buildings:

I noticed in the guide book that the town of Lymm, coming up soon, has a highly rated pub, so we decided to stopped and check it out.  The Brewery Tap actually used to brew beer in the basement, but now they leave the brewing to Dunham Massey Brewery 20 minutes down the road.  We may actually check out that brewery tomorrow. 

Check out this photo.  We are just outside the Brewery Tap and you can see our narrowboat on top of an aqueduct in the background.  Pretty cool!

After the pint, I walking a block into town.  Look how gorgeous the town center is:

It was almost 5 PM and we had a bit more to go before stoping for the night.   Here is a last view of Lymm as we headed out of town:

Old buildings are right on the canal in Lymm because the canal was actually built right through its town center.
We made it to our mooring for the night, in the town of Dunham Massey, right at 6 PM.  We have big plans for this small town.  There are 2 well reviewed pubs that we want to hit.  The Swan with Two Nicks and Vine Inn.  Both are supposed to have a great selection of real ales. First i cooked dinner first (Breaded cod filet with a mayo/ketchup sauce and spinach & potatoes) for dinner.

After dinner we quickly left to walk to The Swan.  They are advertised to close at 8 PM, so we had only 1 hour till them.  Alas, when we arrived at 7:30 PM it was closed…drats…at least there is another pub to walk to…and this one is advertised to be open until 11 PM.  We walked past the boat in the other direction and arrived at Vine Inn.  It was opened, but as we were entering the door, there was a sign that said they only take cash.  Well, guess what, we don’t have any cash..drats again.  Oh well…i guess our 2.25 miles of walking will have to be chalked up to after dinner exercise.  

Back to the boat, watched some TV, got this blog done, and now off to bed at 11:30 PM.  Tomorrow is another day to seek out…and hopefully drink) some real ales.

Finally…today is the day we start our 3-week narrowboat holiday.  It will take 2 trips to the narrowboat (20 minute round-trip walk).  We left the AirBnB at 11:15 with the first load.  On the way back we stopped at the Kings Lock Fish & Chips shop to get lunch.  This shop is supposed to be one of the best chippy’s in the area.  It did not disappoint.  Check out the classic Fish & Chips light above the door.  It reminds me of the Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips logo.

We packed up the last of our stuff, left the AirBnB and made it to the Anderson Boats by 12:20 PM.  The boat was ready, so we were able to load all of our stuff onboard.  Terry gave us a safety brief and provided a boat orientation.  We were ready to go, but the boat was facing the wrong direction.  Because of the length of the boat (53 feet) and the width of the canal (less than 53 feet), you can’t just do a u-turn anywhere.  Unfortunately, the closest place a u-turn is possible is about 1/4 mile behind us.  Terry did the hard job of driving backwards to the winding point and turned us around.  We were finally given the helm and were on our way 1:45 PM.

Just 5 minutes into our trip and we came to our first lock, Big Lock.  Here is a photo of Tim entering the lock after I opened the door.  Big lock is pretty cool.  It is actually wide enough for two narrowboats to fit at the same time.  It is also along side a pretty cool pub called, no surprise, Big Lock, which can be seen in the second photo just behind me.

The weather today was chilly and drizzly.  The temperature was in the low 50’s, but the wind and the precipitation made it feel colder.  Regardless, it was a nice day on the canal.

Around 5 PM it was getting colder and the rain seemed to be picking up, so we started looking for a place to stay for night.  We finally settled on a public mooring in Anderton at 5:30 PM.  We tied up, warmed up inside, and unpacked the rest of the bags.  After dinner (spinach & ricotta tortellini with garlic bread) we watched TV as I wrote this blog. Unfortunately,  the cell service isn’t strong enough here to upload the blog, so this will be posted after the fact.

Maybe tomorrow the weather will be a bit better?  We will see...

We have an 11:20 AM train to catch to Crewe.  From there we catch a bus to Middlewich.  We were able to sleep in some and ate our leftover lunch (pizza) for breakfast before packing up and walking the 15 minutes to the train station.  Here I am, waiting for the train, with my new acquisition…wellies.  Two years ago, when we did 2 weeks on a narrowboat, our feet were always wet and cold.  We decided to both by a pair of welies…aka rubber boots.  Our plan is to use the wellies on the narrowboat and then get rid of them.

We made it to Crewe in just under 2 hours.  The bus to Middlewich is supposed to be right outside the train station, but arrives in about 5 minutes.  If we miss the bus we have to wait 1 hour for the next one.  As luck would have it, the bus was a bit late and we actually made it.  45 minutes later we arrived in Middlewich, where conveniently, our AirBnB was just 500 feet from the bus stop.

After unpacking a bit, we head straight out to check in with Andersen Boats to let them know that we have arrived in town and determine our meeting time on Monday (noon).  We then continued into town and saw Fjord Princess, our narrowboat starting Monday.

We decided to do some grocery shopping.  We knew that the amount of groceries we need, we would have to do two trips since we are on foot and have to carry everything.  We will do one trip today and another tomorrow.  On the way to the market, we stopped at a pub to make a dinner reservation for my birthday.  Oh yeah…today is my 52nd birthday!

After shopping, we returned to the AirBnB and then headed out to dinner.  We ate at The Kinderton.  I ordered the smoked fish pie and Tim had the steak and ale pie.  Of course we washed it down with a real ale.  a real ale is a beer that is drawn, versus on draft, making it a flatter, warmer beer than the beer us North Americans are used to.  And for dessert, to finish off my perfect English dinner, I ordered sticky toffee pudding.  My English birthday dinner was great!

After dinner, thoroughly stuffed, we returned to the AirBnB, watched some TV, and called it a night.

The next day, we slept in, I made breakfast (scrambled eggs, potatoes, mushroom, spinach, & toast), then headed back to the supermarket to finish our shopping.  After returning to the AirBnB, we relaxed for a bit before heading out for dinner.  We picked up some Indian food, took it to a local pub, and ate it with a pint, on tap this time since they didn’t have any real ales.  On our way back to the AirBnB, we decided to stop at the Kings Lock Inn, a pub right across form our AirBnB, since they had real ale.  We both had a 1/2 pint then headed back to the AirBnB.

Tomorrow we pick up our narrowboat and start our 3-week adventure on the canals.

We took off from Cleveland at 4 PM, and landed in London at 9 AM the next day.  With a 5 hour time difference, that is 4 AM Cleveland time.  We both got a 2 or 3 hours of sleep on the plane, so when we landed we felt OK, which is a good thing since we have more traveling and a museum tour ahead of us before we check into our AirBnB.  Instead of traveling all the way to Middlewich, where we are starting our narrowboat holiday, we decided to travel only part of the way to Milton Keynes,

We got through customs and arrived at the Underground station just in time to catch the 10AM train to Euston Station where we will catch a train to Bletchley.  We arrived at Euston Station way ahead of time and had to wait till the 1:15 PM train to Bletchley.  We grabbed lunch and tried to stay warm in the station...burrrrr...it is chilly here.  The train was successfully caught and we arrived in Bletchley at 1:50 PM.  We walked to the museum and arrived in time for our 2:30 PM tour.

What museum, you may ask, is worth all this travel and staying up after a long flight?  The National Museum of Computing, of course.  The National Museum of Computing is home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers, and is located in Bletchley Park, the principal center of allied code-breaking during WW2.  You know the movie "Enigma?"  This is where that happened.

Anyway, the tour was amazing.  It started with a working replica of Enigma, a cipher device used by the Germans in WW2.  The guide explained how the device works and then showed us the Bombe, a machine made by Alan Turing to break the code.  The Bombe at the museum is actually a working, rebuilt Bombe.

The Germans followed Enigma up with the more sophisticated Lorenz SZ42 cypher machine. Colossus, the world's first electronic computer, helped decipher these messages between Hitler and his generals during World War II.

​The tour guide didn't just show us these machine. They explained how the people of Bletchley Park figured out how to build a machine based on just he coded messages received. The guide would then turn on the machines.  That was what was impressive about this museum.  Every machine/computer in the museum is in working condition.

Here is the Harwell Dekatron Computer, aka W.I.T.C.H.  It was built to help do calculations for the atomic bomb program, and became operational in 1951.  It has RAM and uses paper tape to load programs.  This machine is oldest original working digital computer in the world!

Even though the tour was incredible, we were getting extremely tired and it got harder and harder to concentrate.  I didn't take anymore photos on the tour, but it continued for a total of 2.5 hours where they showed us computers from the beginning to today.

After the tour, the tour guide offered to take us to our AirBnB, which was awesome.  We arrived at the apartment around 5:45 and was exhausted, but also hungry.  We headed out and found food (Japanese) and even managed to pick up a new SIM card for my cellphone, so now we have full service, including data.  After arriving back to the apartment, we stated up as long as we could, and finally went to bed at 9:30 PM.

The next day, Saturday, we slept in and felt pretty good when we got up.  Neither of us seemed to have jet-lag...Awesome!  We spent the day doing some shopping, eating lunch, and walking around Milton Keynes.  We wound up at BrewDog Brewing Company which was kind of cool, since we were in BrewDog in Columbus, Ohio just 4 days ago.  We then went to dinner at Weatherspoon's, one of our favorite chains in the UK, that has well priced food and drink.  Then, back to the AirBnB and called it a night.  Tomorrow we head to Middlewich, the town we start our narrowboat holiday.

After 2 years of not being able to travel due to COVID, we are finally on our way.  We have had a plan to travel to Eastern Europe for some time now.  We actually had airline tickets, some lodging, some rental cars, some bus tickets, and a return cruise booked since before COVID hit.  We were going to start travel 1 May 2020.  Fortunately, we were able to get all but about $100 of all the reservations back.  Since then we were closely following the news to determine when it would be safe to return to traveling.  I used Rick Steves as my barometer.  When Rick feels safe traveling and starting back up his tours, then we will travel as well.  In March, Rick's tours started back up, so we booked our travel.

However, before heading to Eastern Europe, we flew to London to spend 3 weeks traveling the canals on a narrowboat.  Stay tuned for an amazing narrowboat blog to follow.