Tag: middlewich

Looking good for your age

After 4 lock free months it was time to  get back into the swing of things.

Passing the entrance to the Middlewich Branch

There are just 5 locks on the Trent and Mersey going through Middlewich, which allowed us to stretch those muscles and start building up some stamina again.

Kings Lock on the Trent and Mersey, Middlewich

And of course after all that hard work….. with the help from three volunteer lockies, we had to reward ourselves with the best fish and chips on the cut from King’s Lock Chippie.

After all we were celebrating my birthday

Chocolate Fudge cake, with the appropriate number of candles

Yes we did eat it all, but not in one go. We moved on to Ettiley Heath where we tried to bribe Mike Carter with a slice when he came to do our Boat Safety inspection. He wasn’t having any of it, not that he needed bribery, Firecrest is well maintained and passed with flying colours.

Looking towards Watchlane Flash at Ettiley Heath

We moved onto Firecrest in 2017. You might have noticed that after 8 years we have finally added our painted Firecrest image as a blog icon so if you have stored our blog on your home pages or own blog roll hopefully it will be a little easier to see. Apologies that we still don’t accept comments on our posts.

Stylised Firecrest
Our blog icon

Meanwhile in Middlewich

After a day off, we completed 4 more of the heartbreak hill locks to moor up on the wides above Kings Lock in Middlewich.

Kings Lock visitor mooring

A convenient but noisy mooring as the busy A533 runs right alongside, but the neighbours were friendly, and liked to pop in for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea dinner and supper and snacks inbetween.

Please feed us

And the early mornings were idylically peaceful, especially if you’re travelling by hot air balloon

What a glorious morning to take a balloon flight

Middlewich itself is a busy little place, convenient for boaters as it has supermarkets and services, and a very interesting looking Italian restaurant, that used to be a cinema.

The middlewich Alhambra

Historically, the Roman’s valued it for its salt pan, (as most towns ending in a “wich” have a salt based heritage.) And it is the middle of the 3 Cheshire salt towns of Northwich, Middlewich and Nantwich. Nowadays its busy canal junction is the main attraction. We sat out the weekend’s heavy rain and set off on Monday morning, Kings Lock being the last in our descent of Heartbreak Hill.

The last lock of Heartbreak hill