Having reached the end of the canal we were now backtracking, through the basin with Telfords warehouse and Taylor’s Boatyard and the canal link onto the River Dee in Chester.

Then back up the 3 deep staircase locks. On our we down we had earnt brownie points for working the staircase shuffle, that’s two down and one up, crossing over in the middle. Perfectly doable, but not for the faint hearted. This time we worked on our own, a bit scary in a 30foot deep lock.

We crept underneath the steep walls with bridges overhead

We moored overnight in Chester to stock up on groceries but although it’s a beautiful and fascinating city, we were ready to move on. And of course we know there will be more to explore next time. Our goal now was to reach Hurleston junction to turn onto the llangollen canal.

It felt good to be back out in the countryside again until we came to the Golden Nook Farm moorings which stretch further than the eye can see, probably for 2 miles, and 2 miles of enforced tick over feels incredibly tedious.

But hey, it is what it is and at least the canal isn’t full of weed. And we were rewarded with another glorious sky at our mooring near Beeston

We took a few days to get back to the Barbridge junction where the Middlewich branch joins the main line

before we were passing under another Bridge 100.
