Month: November 2023

Mooving from the Middlewich to the Macclesfield

Time to set off up Heartbreak Hill and give the old lock muscles a workout.  But before the aches set in we decided to take a detour on foot, to explore the lovely little market town of Sandbach.  It’s a familiar name on the M6 junction signs, but we had never taken the time to visit it before, and I’m glad we did. It has lots of character, independant shops and some real medieval history, I have a feeling we will come here again. (If only to visit the Cafe on the Square for another Handmade  sausage roll)

Sandbach

Fortified, we set off under bridge 152 at Wheelock bottom lock to tackle the 6 miles with 26 locks.

Entering Wheelock bottom lock

But unlike the hire boaters who do the whole flight twice in one week, we stopped off at the top of the Wheelock stretch

Wheelock top lock

Waking to a fabulous sunrise, we set off nice and early, just cause it felt so good to be out in the fresh air and sunshine.

Red sky in the morning, sheperds warning

But whilst we were enjoying the sunshine and just a few flooded fields,

At least the canal hasn’t burst its banks here


our family in Suffolk were half a mile away from the devistation left by Storm Babet, luckily high enough up the hill not to be in need of their own boat.

The River Deben, the nearby houses were badly flooded (photo swiped from internet)

And whilst the country was still reeling from the mindless act of vandalism that destroyed Sycamore Gap, we’ve been enjoying some beautiful trees on our route.

That’s Mow Cop in the distance,

From setting off at sunrise we were moored up at Church Lawton for sunset

Bridge 135

With only 5 locks left to complete the flight we took it easy on day three, stopping for water at Red Bull before flying ove the aqueduct at Hardings Wood Junction, where the Macclesfield canal crosses over the Trent and Mersey Canal

Pool Lock Aqueduct

Hello Macclesfield Canal,

Hall Green stop lock on the Macclesfield

Hampered or Enhanced

In the true spirit of Britishness, the weather continues to dominate our cruising plans, yet no matter how carefully we study various forecasts nothing beats looking out the portholes for accuracy. The bad days have been so awful we’ve battoned down the hatches and stayed snug inside. With no photos to prove it, yet the good days have seen blue skies and dramatic  clouds that have done nothing but enhance our love of this out door lifestyle.

We were to spend the next week travelling down the 10 miles of the Middlewich branch,

Minshall Lock

Autumn hadn’t quite arrived when we were here mid October, and the garden at Minshall Lock still held some jewels.

Stanthorne Visitor Moorings were a nice place to stay for a few days

Stanthorne Visitor Moorings



And our local family came to say hello

Kevin Jane and Bob the dog

5 minutes after they’d left the view changed dramatically  and the heavens opened

it looks like autumn now

Whilst we were moored at Stanthorne we were puzzled by what looked like a stationary boat approaching the bridge. Curiosity got the better of us, two boats had had their mooring pins torn out and were floating free in the middle of the channel. We were able to do our good deed for the day by asking a passing boater to nudge them close enough to the bank for us to get on, and rescue the ropes which thankfully still had the pins attached. The ground is so soft with all the rain it’s hardly surprising the pins didn’t hold.

that’s not a good place to drop anchor.

The moral of this has to be. If you can’t moor on rings or armco, use a cross pin to brace the rope holding pin, use a springing line to help hold the boat still, and always thread your rope through the pin ring and most importantly SLOW DOWN past moored boats, infact throttle down before you reach the moored boat so that you are actually going slowly when you pass them. Apologies for getting on my high horse there, but it really does matter.

Swan Patrol reporting back

And back onto the Trent and Mersy at King’s Lock Middlewich

Middlewich junction