Boat Blog – Page 9 – Narrowboat Firecrest

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.

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)

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

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

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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,

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,.

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

Back onto the Bridgewater

As we couldn’t trust being able to cruise the full length of Leeds and Liverpool, we’ve opted to meander towards Chester. We’re going to stay in the northwest with the hope that we can cruise east next spring. But watch this space things could change. So for now we’ve booked ourselves 7 nights on the Bridgewater, to unlock the rest of our summer

Its scary seeing the size of lock gates out of the canal

Our RHS tickets were valid until the end of the month so we stopped off for the night outside RHS Bridgewater Garden

Its just over two months since we were last here, and the plants had magically transformed from a mass of purple iris and alliums into a hot bed of oranges and yellows. Hard to say which season I prefer. RHS Bridgewater is very much a 21st century garden where nature has been embraced and encouraged. Several potentially formal herbaceous borders were scattered with wild flowers seeds and the rewards were worthy of Monnet’s painting skills, or perhaps Jackson Pollock could splatter some colour like this.

Our meanderings into the art world took us into the heart of Manchester, as we took a detour and turned left at Stretford for a night moored in Castlefields. We were lucky to be able to meet up with Rito and overwhelmed by the choice of what to do in the city, we opted for the Manchester Art Gallery

You can never quite tell what impact an art gallery is going to make. Some are stuffed with halls and halls of old masters which beyond appreciating the detail and talent of the artist, leave me a bit bored. Manchester hit the nail on the head by mixing up the periods, giving them context, and celebrating local art in all shapes and forms, and really made us stop and wonder

We saw a fair few Lowry’s, but outside I had to pay homage to a hero of mine, Emmeline Pankhurst who came from Manchester, thankyou.

Cruising through Manchester has a bit of a reputation, and it wasn’t certain that we would be able to get a mooring in Castlefields but we were lucky, we found a space and it felt safe enough. Interesting being surrounded by the old and modern buildings, ( although I think the planning board need to consider the aesthetic impact of the high rises)

Castlefields by day evening and early morning

Rito went home to sleep in his own bed overnight, but joined us again as we cruised back out of central Manchester. Past the start (or end) of the Rochdale canal,

Im not sure I fancy going through that lock

And some very impressive arches carrying the transport infrastructure that helped make Manchester the thriving city it is.

Past some impressive street art, and some bad graffiti,

the city of Manchester adopted the image of of the worker bee over 150 years ago because it encompasses the ethic of hard work and a hive of activity

Past the famous football ground,

And back into the “country side”

but that can’t be real countryside, just look at the towpath quality

to Wigan and beyond

Making progress means working through locks again, so out came the tools of my trade as we worked our way into and out of Wigan. The past 3 or 4 months have been a nightmare for anyone trying to cruise through this junction. With restrictions due to water levels and the Wigan flight being closed for several weeks for both a sinkhole and a blown cill. But the end was in sight and passages were up and running again. But after months without water, we got caught in a monsoon and had to halt our progress. We pulled in at the first available mooring outside Wigan Athletic FC. A bit of a mistake, lots of families out walking, one who thought it was acceptable to encourage their kids to climb on to the roof of our boat for a photo opportunity. I wish they’d fallen in when I stuck my head out to yell at them, and why is it that we only think of witty and wise comments after the event, like for instance, “how would you like it if we climbed on the roof of your car, and potentially scratch the paint or break the windscreen wipers” ah well perhaps there won’t be a next time.

we didn’t waste any time the next day moving on through Wigan, past the pier

there are some fabulous old mill buildings in Wigan,

and onto the flashes, we moored up at Scotsmans Flash

the Scotsmans Flash, a wildlife parkland created after the mining industry collapsed

it was close enough for me catch a train to spend the day with my family celebrating Aunties birthday

And with Mum and Mike having driven down from the Lakes, I took the opportunity to go back with then for a few days amongst the mountains

We even found a pretty waterfall, not on quite the grand scale of the ones I saw in Iceland but never or less, it made me smile.

Just as beautiful, just not quite so awesome as the Iceland waterfalls

Almost as much as seeing this reserved parking space

Sadly they had packed up for the day just as we arrived

And as always lots of laughter around

And I was soon back on the flashes ready to continue our journey

Never a dull moment

It’s all go on board the little ship Firecrest, as we cruised on to Burscough. I was just putting the kettle on after we’d moored up, when I saw our first visitor arriving

Turns out this fella, who lives locally, has a liking for passing narrowboats,

Ey’up what’s for tea.

Burscough has some interesting wildlife,

But not all is what it seems, this duck had made her nest in Tesco carpark, right in centre of town.

Burscough is great place to be, cause its got excellent public transport, and i was able to hop on a train to Ormskirk to see Martina and the Ormskirk spinning group. We’re taking every opportunity to spin right now because as every good spinner knows, July is the TdF month, no not Tour de France, but Tour de Fleece, an epic 23 day Spinathon, where we tune in the TV coverage of that little european bike ride, and we take part in daily challenges, endurance spinning, speed spinning, fine spinning or challenging spinning, and if we’re not part of a local spinning community, encouraged on social media by spinners all around the world

I managed to spin 500g of fibre and made approximately 1.5km of yarn.

it’ll be hand-knits for Christmas again folks

I missed a trick and should have entered my spinning into one of the creative categories at the Parbold Village show, our friends Paul and Sharon who are local boaters suggested we all go together, and as village shows go, it was a good one, the funniest competition was for the ugliest house plant.

that would be a lovely photo of Paul and Sharon, if it weren’t for that monstrosity behind them

Although there were some others that made us smile as well

I think I’d fit in quite well in Parbold

After all that excitement, we pushed on for some rural tranquility, there’s a nice stretch just beyond Appley Bridge

Where the sunsets are usually pretty good

And the field next to the towpath is full of blue linseed.

Back to calmer waters and my little boat

Fortunately not all good things must come to an end and it was lovely to see my little boat and Eric again. Eric had cruised out of Liverpool the day after Amanda and I set off on our epic Iceland adventure, so once we picked up the car, she dropped me off back at our little boat.

I think my hand looks like it’s missing a cocktail glass

Eric had had a good 10 days, but was complaining bitterly about how hot it had been so he hadn’t been able to complete any of the chores he had planned to do…..but he had gone to town preparing some fine dining for me, I decided to dress for dinner

Just so I could show off my sparkley toes

And I was treated to a magnificent salad served with a cocktail and a chocolate dessert for afters

I think he had missed me but is in no doubt I’d like to go again. That said we set off to cruise into Lancashire instead. The canal is full of a yellow waterlily -which is all well and good until you meet a boat coming the other way.

Occassionally there are more ornate lilie

They might look, beautiful they they have stems like rubber under the water that wrap around your prop if you’re not careful. But who knows what’s going on underneath, we got to one of favourite mooring spots next to the Halsall Navvie.

We love this guy and all he represents, building the canals back in the late 1700s was hard hard work, and we shall always be grateful to them and the engineers ingenuity for devising our network.

The Journey Home-Iceland part 7

a delivery of flowers from my mum and Mike wishing us a memorable holiday

What a fantastic holiday, Iceland really is a place I’d like to go back to, more things to see and do and more things to see and do again, But Amanda and I had 2 whole days of cruising left to enjoy, and yes I’d quite happily become a continual cruiser on a bigger ship than Firecrest. But what’s to stop me having crispy bacon, pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast every day on Firecrest?

Just because we could…and I didn’t have to make it myself

And I’m not sure I would really want a dining room quite this big

And I discovered the pleasure in having a pedicure, we’ve been back in England 3 weeks now and my toes are still sparkley

We tried to persuade the sommelier to come home with us to keep the fizz flowing

We were supposed to be heading for a game of table tennis but when someone stops you with a glass of fizz you don’t say no

Infact Julius our lovely cocktail waiter told us he could cook and clean and quite fancied coming home with us

Amanda was very tempted to smuggle him out

I’m not sure I smile so much when it rains so much in an English summer

Standing over the great divide, between the American and Eurasian tectonic plates

And it was very disappointing when our whale watching trip got cancelled at the last minute

So disappointing, all dressed up and nowhere to go

But we really did get to see some magnificent sights in Iceland.

The rain didn’t dampen our spirits

Dressing for dinner was fun

And cocktail of the day was a must, although we tried to hold off until 5pm when we had a plate of canapés delivered to our cabin

And nothing beats live music

It’s been hard to pick out the best bits, I think perhaps Goðafoss was my favourite waterfall

The lupins were my favourite flower on the island

lovely Alaska lupins, brought in to help reduce the soil erosion

The sunsets were memorable

And the company was the best,

I wish that Amanda had been able to share this with David as they’d planned back in 2022, but his memory travelled with us and this holiday was dedicated to him, his love of life and his love for Amanda. Thankyou Amanda for letting me share it with you.

The Golden Circle-Iceland part 6

There are many “must do” sights in Iceland and when we were planning our trip, visiting the golden circle, the 140 mile spectacular route was one we had to see, and didn’t we just pick the day with the weather.

But nothing was going stop Amanda and I making the most of every single minute, including shrieks of amazement when our tour bus was leaving the industrial harbour and I saw a Firecrest painted on the side of unit.

The Firecrest might be the smallest bird in England, but that’s definitely the biggest bird I’ve seen in Iceland

Luckily the perceived wisdom about the weather in Iceland is to “hang about 10 minutes and it will have changed completely”. So as our tour bus arrived at one of the magnificent waterfalls, the mist parted to reveal Gullfoss, “the golden waterfall” Of course being part of the must do tour of Iceland meant we weren’t the only ones enjoying the view.

Gullfoss could be counted as two significant waterfalls, each worthy of a million photos

Back in the early 20th century an enterprising English man wanted to buy the waterfall from its owner, Tomas Tomasson, a sheep farmer. The plan was to use it to generate hydro-electricity. However Tomas refused to sell “his friend” but did agree to lease the land. This led to years of legal battles, because there was a loophole that Tomas hadn’t forseen. His daughter, Sigríður Tómasdóttir fought hard and sacrificed much, she frequently walked the 62 miles into Reykjavik to After much expense and uphill struggle, to the point where she threatened to throw herself into the falls if construction started, Howell pulled out and in 1929 Gullfoss returned to the custodianship of the Icelandic people. Sigríður is recognized as Iceland’s first environmentalist

I wonder if I have a bit of Iceland in my heritage, wearing plaits.

But there’s no way I’m going to throw myself down there no matter how special it is.

We could have stayed and marvelled all day at Gullfoss, but our excussion was ready to move on. We didn’t have time to visit the Langjökull Glacier,

it was only after a closer look that we realised it was ice not cloud

We fancied something a bit warmer so it was off to visit geysers

Our geyser is Stokkur, and you can see the comparison to other globally famous geysers

With dire warnings not to go into the water as it was coming out of the ground between 80 and 100°C we all dutifully stood around the discreet barrier

And were rewarded with several very dramatic expulsions of water and steam as Stokkur revealed its glory

It’s little brother, appropriately named Little geyser was spluttering mud most of the time

Again as we have seen throughout our visit, despite it being height of tourist season and the number of visitors, we never really felt the crowds spoilt our own enjoyment.

We had one final location to visit on our golden circle tour. Þingvellir, (thingvellir)This area is strangely unique as it forms both part of Iceland’s political heritage, and a significant geological feature. The newly arrived settlers gathered together at this site to decide how to live as a community. The Alþingi, general assembly was founded in 930 and continued meet until 1798, it is still revered as a national shrine.

However impressive the sense of pride the Icelanders have of their country, we were fascinated by the fact that these rock formations were actually part of the earth’s tectonic plates. On one side we were able to reach out and touch the Americas,

Yes it was raining again, but who could resist touching America

whereas on the other we were in no-man’s land for the eurasion plates were now some 4km away and shifting by 2.5cm a year.

Thankfully thats only 0.07mm per day and we didn’t think the ground was going to swallow us up before we got home.

I’m glad we couldn’t see what we were walking over

We made it safely back to our ship in time for an early evening departure from Iceland. As we said our farewells we cruised past the Imagine Peace Tower, the right hand small white structure on Viðey Island. It is a memorial and symbol of international peace, erected by Yoko Ono in 2007,

the Imagine Peace Tower
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_Peace_Tower

on significant dates it is lit with 15 searchlights and prisms that appear to create a tower of light reaching 4000m into the sky

Reykjavik-Iceland part 5

Another early morning treat when we threw open the curtains, our very cartoon volcano on the horizon. Thankfully it wasn’t an erupting one.

And being up early we saw the pilot arrive to guide the ship into Reykjavik Harbour.The skyline was full of promise of an exciting city to explore

We decided to forgo the organised excusion to the famous Blue Lagoon, Back in March I had shared the locks on the Hatton flight with a family who turned out to be travel writers, I flippantly asked for any tips about Iceland and was told I must visit the Sky Lagoon, it being newer, a better location, smaller and less busy closer to Reykjavik, and cheaper to boot -with more extras. And after hearing our fellow passengers accounts it seems we chose well. Needless to say you will have to form your own picture of Amanda and I bathing in the thermal waters of the infinity pool overlooking the ocean, of course with a cocktail in hand, before we entered the 7 step spa ritual with its sauna, again overlooking the ocean, the salt scrub and whale music, (don’t picture us leaping into the ice cold plunge pool, that wasn’t so pretty) etc.

https://www.skylagoon.com/

I could say that’s it for our trip to Reykjavik, but fortunately it wasn’t. With our radiant skin and chilled out minds we followed our taxi drivers recommendation and found ourselves a cafe serving proper icelandic food. And we sat on the pavement eating soused herring on ryebread

After lunch we followed the rainbow road up to the magnificent Hallgrímskirkja, which although the most impressive of buildings, isnt the Reykjavik cathdral but the parish church. To me its sleek modern architecture summed up how artistic and stylish this island is. And interestingly it is known in English as the Church on the Hill, which is also what the Church our father in law was minister at for many years.

my photos don’t do justice to the scale of this elegant building, known in English as the Church on the Hill

And standing watch outside is a monument of Lief Ericsson, the explorer credited with discovering Iceland in the 10th century

Perhaps not all of Iceland’s art is quite as stylish

But I did like the piles of rocks all along the shoreline

We perhaps didn’t make the best of our day exploring Reykjavik, there were many many more attractions that we could have visited. But we had booked ourselves onto a whale watching trip at 3pm so we only had two hours between the spa and what was to be the highlight of our trip. We got ourselves all togged in the gear

And we’re just heading down to the awaiting RIB…..

This was to be a joy ride extraordinaire

…..when our excitement was shattered. The sea conditions had worsened and the waves were now over 2m so our trip was cancelled. To say we were gutted was an understatement. Although with that sort of swell perhaps our guts were secretly relieved. Although it was still only 4pm the last, courtesy bus back to Borealis was at 5. We could have found a taxi and stayed out longer but our spirits were dampened, until of course we got back to the ship, and were met by our favourite waiter, Julius, who gave us a hot toddy before we boarded.

We like to think we were his favourite passengers

all the crew were lovely on board, they were mainly from the Philippines, they all spoke excellent English, and nothing seemed too much trouble for them. We quickly got to know who worked where on the ship, and madam Cheryl and madam Amanda were always greeted with a smile. We’d recommend Fred Olsen as a cruise operator any day. The little extras always made us smile

(And Hi to Steven the cyclist who stopped to say hello yesterday, who let us know he was enjoying the blog- thanks Steven we appreciate knowing)

midsummer’s day, Iceland part 4

The itinerary for our 3rd day in Iceland was a gentle hike to the Valagil falls, whilst Borealis was held at anchor in the bay at Ísafjörður. Despite it being midsummer, we looked out at snowcapped hills, and although I hadn’t intended to, I wonder if captured some dolphins in my photo, or perhaps nessie had joined our holiday

Ísafjörður is a fishing town and the farms were visible from the ship,

This was the only port where we had a tender transfer to shore.

No need for waterproofs today, but we both wrapped up well in our hand knits

Is it wrong to bring your own Icelandic jumper to Iceland, if it is I apologise. Traditional Lopi yarn is usually exported to the UK, but for some reason there has been a shortage, so our sweaters were knitted in another Scandinavian yarn called Drops Alaska, Amanda’s is a traditional icelandic design called Riddari and mine is a modern variation called Telja. We did visit some local yarn stores and saw both yarn and completed knits for sale but I decided not to buy any more.

After my mini photo shoot, our guide pointed to the head of the valley and sent us on our way

Thankfully we didn’t have to climb to the top

I also had chance to enjoy some of the many flowers in bloom, many were familiar to me, but the white flower with yellow middle is Holtasóley, Icelands national flower.

Valagil was probably the least dramatic of the waterfalls we’d seen but having the opportunity to stroll and have enough puff to chat to our fellow travellers made it a very enjoyable day.

It also meant that we had the opportunity to have a stroll through the town before we returned to Borealis , Many of the Icelandic towns have embraced inclusively and taken to adding a rainbow street to mark Gay Pride.

Iceland did feel a very welcoming place and we got an overwhelming sense of pride in the country, its history and heritage, as a whole, from our tour guides.

And I saw some colourful Iceland poppies growing in a garden

But it was time to return aboardand as we couldn’t swim that far, we got squashed onto the tender like sardines,

For an exhilarating speed ride – it probably wasn’t all that fast but it was close to the water and felt it

Luckily for us there was a boarding platform but at the end of the day the tenders were hoisted back to deck 3, where they reverted to becoming lifeboats again