Into Ashton-Under-Lyne

Yesterday, April 1st, we climbed out of bed early....oh yea!  We had promised Dot and Gordon (NB Ewn Ha Cul) that we would give them a hand down the Marple flight of locks.  We took the dogs with us and walked back 2.5 miles and gave them a hand, plus the other Aussie boat NB Moon Shadow was with them.  It took us 2 hours to get both boats down compared with 5 hours yesterday just to lock ourselves down! The other boat crews were most impressed with my big tool - Peter was so impressed he is going to get one as well....a long handled windlass!

Once at the bottom it was all aboard Dot and Gordon's boat for some yummy soup.

As usual Elaine and I didn't have a clue what the day's plans were, but apparently we were moving on to Ashton!  We cadged a lift back to Caxton where we loaded Dot and Gordon's boat with a good supply of wood - there are shedloads of wood along the  Romiley section of the canal.

Then we were off, a pleasant day cruising, ducking under the M67 ...


Passing a nice demolition site ...

Mooring for hire here.....no thanks!

Finally stopping at Ashton.  The battle group is now fully assembled ready for the early morning assault on the Ashton flight - we have 3 Aussie boats and 1 Pommie boat, so we are letting them go first!  NB Moonshadow is the rear gunner!

Fine tuning the prop and removing various bits of rope and plastic bags to ensure optimum performance in the early hours of tomorrow morning!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends.........
Wish us luck chaps!  (Oh, by the way the will is on the fridge door!)