Narrowboat Holiday Day 7 - Romiley to Whaley Bridge (6.5 hour; 8.8 miles; 16 locks; 3 bridges)

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.

There is currently a shortage of water due to work being done on a reservoir that supplies the Peak Forest Canal with water.  Because the Marple Lock Flight uses a lot of water, the locks are currently only open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  Luckily we knew this and arrived at the first of the Marple Lock Flight at 9:15 AM on Saturday,

When we got to the first lock, there was already another boat in it, so we had to pull over and wait till they were through the lock.

Lock 1 of the Marple Flight Locks

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.

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:

Waiting for the lock to fill.

Almost full enough to exit.

Lock 9 doors are closed

Tim just entered the lock. I have to close the doors now.

A boat waiting to enter the lock as the lock is filling with water.

Cool shot!

Marple is a cute canalside town.

Another cool shot of Marple.

Water rushing though the gate in the door to fill the lock.

The doors on the lock are huge and very heavy.

Tim entering a lock with an audience.

Canal and River Trust Volunteers waiting to open the door for Tim as I go ahead and prepare the next lock.

Lock 16 of 16 with an audience.

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.

“Known in some elevated circles as the Upper Peak Forsest Canal, the route southwards from Marple, to the twin termini of Bugsworth and Whaley Bridge, is one of the most exhilarating on the system.  Lockless, and punctuated but occasionally by moveable bridges, it is the setting as opposed to the canal itself which lifts this section out the commonplace, like an otherwise ordinary tune rendered memorable by sumptuous orchestration.  A vigorous landscape of fells, wind-bent woods, lonely stone cottages, railway viaducts and colossal mills places this particularly beautiful  canal in an austere, northern mould, and canal explorers, whatever their means of propulsion are blessed with a sense of privilege to be viewing the world from such a sublime perspective.”

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

So cute.

Enjoying the ride.

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.

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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.