Up The Lift and Off The Weaver

What a lovely mooring it was on the River Weaver at the Vale Royal Cut, so peaceful ... that is 'till all we could hear was the rain pelting down on the roof, it didn't let up all night.

Last night view from the side hatch.

We had an early morning discussion with the crew of NB Firefly NZ as to what to do, we quickly decided to get the flock out of there in case the rain didn't stop.  As we haven't had a lot of river experiance we didn't want to get into a situation, We like the easy drama-free boating!

We quickly put on our full sun protection gear, rang the lock keeper and away we went.

Hanging on to the rope to hold the boats against the lock wall. As you can see I am wearing the full safety gear so there is no way that I am going to get sunburnt.

We were advised to give it some serious welly as we came out of the lock as the sluices were open creating a strong by-wash.

Come on Ray give it some stick, or you will end up in the lock wall!

We were well clear but Ray's throttle had jammed and he couldn't slow down ... it didn't really but it was going very fast for a narrowboat!

The next lock was Hunts lock.  The Lockie had Frank, his dog, with him.  Frank jumped onto Ray's boat so was quickly retrieved!

Thank you Lockies and Frank!  Oh, and they reckoned that we were doing the right thing by getting off the river.

We went straight into the lift -  up we went as the trip boat was going down.

After yesterday's interesting facts I can't help myself but to put another one on today.  These are the herringbone/double helical gears that used to operate the Anderton lift when it was first opened, and who invented this style of gear? Well, it was a chap called Andre Citroen, and what is the Citroen logo on the front of their cars?  Aha !

What a fascinating fact......

Ray and Leonie were enjoying the sunshine.

At the top of the lift and away we go safely back on the Trent and Mersey canal ...

We filled with water and emptied the nasties at the Anderton services.  We noticed that the original Braidbar Narrowboat 'Sanity' was moored opposite.  It was looking rather tatty and faded, I think Bruce needs to have a word with the new owners!

We have moored for the night at Marston, next to the Salt Barge pub.  We will go there tonight for a farewell dinner and drinkies with Ray and Leonie from NB Firefly NZ, as they are heading off the Chester way tomorrow whilst we will continue 'daan saaf',  in search of the rain.  We can't stand any more of this sunshine!