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!

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

Oh What Big Locks We Have.

Before we left this morning we popped into Northwich to get a bit of shopping.
Back at the mooring we had a long chat with Peter and Jennifer from NB Mactra's Filia, they are also Aussies living the Narrowboat dream.  So, this morning there were three boats moored at Northwich, two Aussies and one Kiwi ...

Bombo was looking very cute before we left and was begging for his pic to be taken by El ...


One for Lesley and Joe, we cruised past the Yarwood boatyard ...

Into the first big lock....

Hello anybody there?

Big lock gates, all cranked by hand by the C&RT guys

They flood the lock very smoothly ...

Some nice boats on the river ...

 

The Tugboat Proceed looking rather sad ...

 

 

Approaching  a miniature Sydney Harbour Bridge ...

Sammy wasn't too happy wearing his life jacket and was having a bad hair day with the wind on the river !

Smiling through a hail storm (second of the day!) ...

Second big lock of the day ...

Lovely lock architecture ...

Nice setting ... (this view is leaving the lock)


Elaine took the helm for a while - having fun steering against the wind !

Notice the bubble coats are out again !

We moored up for the night at a perfect isolated spot ...

Great dog walking, we even got the bikes out and went for a spin!

For our first river, it is most enjoyable.

Weavering Away

It was an exciting day today as it was to be our first venture onto a river.

We left our mooring at Little Leigh in quite nice conditions, as it wasn't raining!


Nice scenery before we reached the Anderton lift. Elaine walked the doggies along the towpath

We arrived at the lift, then spent a few minutes sorting out the paperwork.  Thirty mins later we entered the caisson alongside Firefly NZ ...

I had to keep the boat in gear and give it a few revs whilst they closed the gates behind us, it was a bit of a tight squeeze for the mighty Caxton!

And down we go ...

The C&RT man was having a dance as we descended ... !

Out we go onto the River Weaver, lovely scenery straight ahead.

The lift looks like something out of War of the Worlds ...

Very impressive, so glad they saved it.

We headed upstream to Northwich

 

Tonight we are tied up at Northwich by the town swing bridge.

This afternoon Ray and I went to the pub to watch Man Utd's last home game - it was a great atmosphere.

In the evening Elaine and I walked the dogs around the centre of Northwich ... a little bit sad looking as a lot of places/pubs are boarded up - and also we counted 10 estate agents in the shopping centre!  Afterward we went to the local 'spoons for the Sunday Roastt - that was busy enough for a Sunday night!  We were talking to an old fella in there who had just got back from watching the Man Utd game, he has been watching them play for 73 Years!!!!  He is 80 now and still remembers his first game vividly!  He goes to all the games including the European trips, they are his life, lovely man!