Sunday, May 13, 2012

We're home !!!

Well - after a brilliant day we reached Macclesfield and tonight we are moored up opposite the famous Hovis Mill - we are only on a 24 hour mooring, so will move somewhere abouts tomorrow !

We had such a good day - my brother, Trevor, came to help us up the 12 Bosley locks and two swing bridges - and thank God he did, 'cos some of the ... actually most of the ... lower lock paddles were soooooo hard - I thought I was going to give myself a hernia doing them !  Trevor also did a lot of the paddles for a lady who was following us up the locks !  Anyway - we made it up !  I even got a nice canal-water shower on about lock 7 - when I was opening the top paddles a massive spurt of water shot up - got me in the face, up my trousers and down one wellie !!!

The swing bridges?  Well - Trev and I did them - and, again, thank God, he was with me - cos I found them very confusing!  The first one was an automated one (one where you have to stop the traffic - yikes !) and the second one was manual (but you still needed a BW key) - but the 'latchey-type-thing' was so heavy - or stuck - there was no way I could have done it on my own !  Thank you, Trev !

I know - I could drive the boat and leave all this to Paul - but that sounds like my worst nightmare - so I'll just keep whinging about locks and swing bridges!!

My dad, Burt, came to spy on us at a few places along the way - and took some piccies.  Tonight we walked Trev home, walked the dogs to Burt's place and bumped into some old friends on the way back to the boat - just brilliant !

Anyway - no pics tonight as it is getting late - so just this fantastic welcome that Trev sent to us .... what more can we say !

2 comments:

  1. Hi Elaine
    I've been reading your blog for a couple of months now (found through Caxton) and can understand where you're coming from with regards to steering the boat. Our 60’ self build is going to be used for the first trip this year and I either have to do about 15 locks a day (we’re going up over the Tring summit) or drive.
    Hey ho looks like I might need another holiday after that one :)

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  2. We have to hang around the Macckesfield area for a while as we are expecting some boxes to arrive from Oz. Then I think we will head towards Manchester and Liverpool.

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