Month: October 2023

6 weeks on the Shroppie

The Shropshire Union Canal is definitely one of the prettiest, although the double locks are heavy going, but it’s worth it to get to Chester.

Approaching Beeston Stone Lock


Chester is one of our favourite cities and we were lucky to get moored at King Charles Garden, under the wall. ( that’s Charles I, we’re still waiting for an invitation to moor in our current King Charles garden)

King Charle’s Tower on the wall

It’s so close to the cathedral that I managed to almost managed to fit in a whole years worth of soul refreshment into one week

The cathedral from the wall

And we still had  plenty of time to explore the city as well,

Eastgate Street, from the wall

Of course it became a daily challenge to walk the wall

Looking up to the wall to Eastgate clock

Thankfully we had left Chester before storm Babet arrived and flooded all the rivers. The river Dee still looked a lovely place to stroll along outside the wall.

The Bandstand on the River Dee

We took advantage of being able to stay 14 days in Chester before we turned round to head south, like the Airbus dolphin that  flies to Toulouse everyday delivering parts from its Cheshire manufacturing plant and headquarters.

One of the Airbus dolphins flying above us

Lots of idyllic rural mooring

Although we knew we’d be cruising straight into that sun after breakfast and we wouldn’t be able to see a thing.

We stopped at the Shady just in time to avoid a torrential down pour, and took advantage of eating out, although it was a nice meal, neither of us thought it justified the price,

Bates Mill Bridge 109, with the Shady pub just the other side




As it didnt entail any more locks, we decided not to turn off onto the Middlewich Branch straight away, but to go on to Nantwich for a few days. And contrary to what we saw in the shop windows Nantwich really isn’t a dead end place

It’s a very interesting historic town, and if all the mooring wasn’t restricted we’d have stayed a whole week,

just some of Nantwich

As usual I made a beeline for the local church St Marys , besides the deep spiritual calm, they are some of the most accessible historic buildings usually full of hidden gems. This time I couldn’t tear myself away from the two hanging embroideries, worked to commemorate both the queen’s silver jubilee and the people of Nanwich.



Nantwich also has a very good cheese shop, several craft brewery’s and a good market. Not to forget also mentioning some nice mooring, although it’s 2 days throughout the entire stretch of the town.

from the aqueduct mooring

Goodbye British Summer Time

And time to catch up on a long overdue blog post. It’s been a funny old summer,  the excitment of my trip to Iceland then the frustrations of navigation closures and broken locks which meant several changes of plans, not to mention the weather and one or two family distractions. I can’t even say we are back on track yet, but hey, that’s boat life for you. The best laid plans have to include course alterations.

the Devils Garden, shared moo-ring

So where were we back in July, heading down the Bridgewater, through lovely Lymm, despite glorious sunshine in June it felt like the sun had packed its bags and gone on holiday.

Blue sky would make a perfect jigsaw picture


Not sure what Eric had done to deserve this but it was too good an opportunity to miss.

the stocks at Lymm

We left the Bridgewater at Preston Brook,

And onto the Trent and Mersey, we managed to moor up at the the Dutton breach moorings and enjoyed looking down towards the Weaver valley

site of the Dutton breach

Which meant of course, the opportunity to explore the Weaver, down the Anderton Boat lift, which we frequently hear is breaking down, and one day those repairs will become economically unviable so we knew we had to take advantage whilst we were passing.


Last time we came onto the Weaver, it was Firecrest that broke down, when our generator decided to throw a wobbly and needed to be craned out for a major repair. (That was September 2020 if you want to look back for details)

Hope we never have to do that again (Sept 2020)


This time it proved to be one of the locks on the River that was out of action, meaning we could only explore downstream towards Runcorn. We found the beautiful rural mooring known as the Devils Garden and settled down to watch the world go by. Having lived on Firecrest for 7 years now, it’s not often that a boat takes us by surprise, but we were quite taken aback when we saw a sea worthy catamaran cruising towards us. How or why we will never know.

Not what we expect to see inland

And then there was the Historic steam ship the Daniel Adamson. Originally a steam tugboat boat built in 1903 to haul barges from Cheshire and the Potteries to Liverpool, but as transport needs changed so did the Danny’s role,

The Danny

And she became a pleasure craft for the rich and famous, beautifully fitted out in the best art deco style of the 1930s. Sadly that era was also to come to an end. In 2004 the Danny was in such disrepair that it was due to be scrapped until an enterprising enthusiast negotiated a deal to buy her for £1. And the story is well told on their website We were lucky enough to find a crew on board who let us on for a nose around. And of course we got to see the Dutton Breach from the bottom of the valley,

Looking up to the site of the Dutton Breach

We ended up spending a whole month on the Weaver as we made trips to visit family and had a mini holiday ourselves, when we caught the train for 2 nights in Llandudno to see the sea and to climb the Great Orme and eat fish and chips on the beach,.

A weekend in Llandudno


And much to Eric’s pleasure we visited the  Penderyn Whisky distillery

Eric’s reward for Posing in the stocks at Lymm

Once we were back onto the Trent and Mersey canal we continued onto  Middlewich branch and headed off towards Chester for the autumn.

heading photo is looking towards Snowdonia from the Great Orme, llandudno