What’s the rush,
I’ve been somewhat distracted over the past month or so. Now we were on the Bridgewater it felt like Firecrest was within touching distance of its final destination, Liverpool. So close to the Mersey, yet from Preston Brook to Salthouse Dock, it is 74 miles and another 14 locks and we had a whole month to complete our journey.
We have cruised the Bridgewater before so we knew roughly where we wanted to stop. We enjoyed a day in Lymm but behaved ourselves so we didn’t get locked in the stocks,
We explored the house
and grounds of NT Dunham Massey
We stopped for breakfast at the fabulous https://www.waltonperk.co.uk/ Walton Perk NB cafe and enjoyed a Bridgewater special, basically a bacon butty but in a toasted teacake with gherkin and mustard.
Before we crossed the incredible feat of engineering, the Barton Swing Bridge
And we were lucky enough to snag the prime mooring spot with an uninterrupted view of the Packet House in Worsely. And whilst it might be a stunning 18th Century building, it’s effectively was just the ticket office and station platform for those wanting to travel along the Bridgewater into Manchester
Whilst we were moored in Worsley we took the opportunity to walk to the newly opened RHS gardens, making the most of our years membership that we purchased last year whilst we were on the River Wey at Wisley. Being end of May, the gardens were dominated by Alliums and Iris. The gardens is obviously still being developed over its huge site, so it will be fun to return in years to come and watch it grow. We added a comment to the suggestion box…. Where’s the visitor mooring! It might only be a mile from Worsley, but its practically a mile to circumnavigate the car park from the towpath.
With our 7 days of permitted time on the Bridgewater, it was off up to Scotsmans Flash on the Leigh branch for a few days
Although with the recurrent lack of water issues at Wigan we did fear we might get stuck there until monsoon season returned but another Pondstock Lock is invariably drained overnight, vandalism or leaky gates, who knows, we were able to get through and into Lancashire, only 35 Miles to go
