Anniversary Day!

It hardly seems possible that five years ago today we were getting married by Bill Clinton in Las Vegas!

So what to do on this momentous occasion?

We decided we would leave our lovely remote, picturesque mooring on the river and head further up river to the Metropolis of Winsford and do lunch in the pub.

Before we left the mooring Ray and Leonie cruised past on NB Firefly NZ - they to were heading to Winsford too.  Mind you there is nowhere else to go as you have to chuck a u-ey as it is the end of the navigation.

No pics on the way up as the camera batteries were on charge!
We tied up next to Firefly as there was no more room for us to tie up outside The Red Lion pub. (There are only two mooring spaces in total).

Ray and Leonie went exploring and shopping whilst Elaine and I went for our romantic lunch date.
Not a huge menu but good enough for lunch !

Back onboard we decided that we didn't want to stay in Winsford but would head back to Vale Royal Cut for another night in the sticks.

Now we have pics of the return journey ...

Turning around in the vast Winsford Flash, we didn't go into it too far as apparently it is very shallow.


NB FireflyNZ was following ...

NB FIREFLY NZ CHUCKING A U-EY

Passing some of the old jetties by the salt mine ...

There are huge stockpiles of rocksalt along the way.  Now I normally don't research  any of my blog content but I had a quick google of the mine and I found the reason that the rock salt is the reddy-pink colour, which is fascinating ...

 The Rock salt at Winsford was formed 220 million years ago when England was covered by inland seas. Hot temperatures evaporated the waters extremely slowly leaving large salt deposits under the earth in and around Cheshire. As the water evaporated the forming salt crystals were tinged pink with the help of sand blown in from eastern deserts......

Sand from the desert!  Amazing!

The mine doesnt look that big, but here are some more amazing facts....

It produces one million tons of rock salt a year, it is the oldest working mine in Britain and it is the largest rock salt mine in Britain!

For our readers from the warmer climes, rock salt is used by all the councils around the UK to spread on the roads to keep the snow and ice at bay.  It also has a profound effect on turning nice motorcars into heaps of rust very quickly, but to be fair they don't rot away like they used to.  Ah, I remember well the sound of the MOT man sticking his rat tail file through the chassis of my 1967 HB Vauxhall Viva!  

OK, that's enough facts - can't have people thinking that they are reading an educational blog can we!


You can tell we have been playing with Picasa.... more old jetties ...
(We thought when we do eventually 'settle down' we might get some of these kind of pics blown up and put onto canvas ..... might look good ?)

Back to the boating trip, not much headroom under the Newbridge swing bridge - we had to remove the chimney and duck!

Once out on the river we unleashed the 43 horses of the mighty Beta power plant, she quickly accelerated to 5.2 MPH before I backed the throttle off ... Elaine said the G force was too much for her.

So we are moored up back in perfect isolation, although it is raining and we have the fire going.

Happy Anniversary Sweetheart xxx