….and 25 locks from the bottom lock at Wheelock to the top lock at Red Bull, Kidsgrove. No wonder it’s known as Heartbreak Hill. Even the summit of that big hill Everest is only 5.5miles above sea level, but I’ve more sense than to attempt that only carrying a windlass. Not to mention my dodgy logic. We set off from Ettiley Heath at 7am so as to beat the heat.
The forecast was for the hottest day of the year so far, mid 20’s, so we only planned to cruise until 11 then find a tree to moor under.
As per ususal we gave a big sigh of relief that our chosen mode of transport took us under the M6 and not along it. Although to be fair, the country would be a very different place if we still relied on the canals to get goods from A to B.
We found our tree after 12 locks and settled down to watch the world go by, except it didn’t, the canal is exceptionally quiet, only 6 boats in the whole day cruised past us.
The next day was a lot busier, although some people had the right idea.
We’d done the hill in 2 days, and it really wasn’t too bad. It’s a pretty section of canal and there’s several nice mooring places to break up the journey. Plan B had been to turn onto the Macclesfield canal here, but alas, due to the April breach we were now onto Plan C, travelling south. We topped up at the very convenient canal side Lidl, and set off through the tomato soup to go through the Harecastle Tunnel.
I didn’t manage to catch the skeleton on camera very well this transit, it must have been running away….
or was it running to catch us, either way I wasn’t hanging around to find out. After 38 minutes underground we were happy to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
We moored up outside the Middleport Pottery to plan our next adventure
