Narrowboat Holiday Day 10 - Bosley to Scholar Green (5 hour; 9.1 miles; 12 locks)

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.

Lock 1 of 12. We are the 2nd narrowboat of the day going through it.

In Lock 1 and going down.

Traffic between locks. As one comes out, another goes in.

Other boaters helping me with the locks.

Another pass between lock. We exit one lock and enter the other, as another boat does the same.

Almost there....one more lock to go.

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

We did it. 12 locks in 2 hours. When's lunch? I'm starving.

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:

The last lock behind us.

A view of many bridges in the distance.

Turning a curve with narrowboats moored against the wall.

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.

Spring is in the air.

Cool giraffe sculptures.

Beautiful canal.

Ramsdell Hall, a country home built in the 1760's. It is privately owned.

Very cool fading paint job.

Being passed by trekkers on the tow path.

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.

Beer is all gone....on to the next pub.

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

Wow...a thatched roof...so cool!

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

A thatched roof and good cask ale...what more can you want?

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:

Very nice mooring for the night. If you zoom in, you can see Tim waving.