From: Andrew J Instone-Cowie Newsgroups: uk.rec.waterways Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2000 4:10 PM Subject: Trip Report : Anderton To Ellesmere Port, At A Leisurely Pace (Long) For our first serious outing in our own boat, we decided to head "towards Chester", and see what happened. The crew consisted of myself and Julie, and Katherine, age 2-and-a-quarter. By way of preparation, I had given the engine the once-over, and filled up with diesel at Barnton, where Pete also sold us a couple of bags of Taybrite smokeless fuel, which he insisted was the bees knees. Friday 21st April After a trip to the caravan centre to collect a new cassette for the loo, unpacking all the shopping, toys, kitchen sink, etc, eventually depart from Uplands at 3.15pm. Note that the weight of tinned food has caused the boat to acquire a slight list to starboard almost exactly of the magnitude of the list to port that I had so carefully tried to eliminate by adjusting trimming weights. Get as far as Broken Cross, by which time the engine is making very odd noises. Pull over and open up the engine compartment. Flexible mounting nut sitting in bilge, engine tap-dancing on mount. Dig out socket set and discover that largest socket fits nut perfectly. Then discover that stud is too long to use socket. Ponder likely source of 15/16" spanner at 5pm on Good Friday, then set off on foot towards service station. Service station closed for refurbishment, but in any case looks like the kind of place that would only be useful if sandwiches and groceries were suitable for use as hand tools. On the way back, accost a cheery farmer doing a spot of brick-laying. Cheery farmers generally in short supply, but this one (a) has a suitable spanner, and (b) is prepared to lend it to three random nutters like us. Nuts duly tightened, engine several orders of magnitude quieter, and spanner returned. Give up for the night near bridge 179. Discover that the smokeless fuel is apparently completely incombustible. Saturday 22nd April It is raining, and rains all morning. Cooked breakfasts all round, then set off towards Middlewich. Lock up through Big Lock, then join a long queue for the three narrow locks, breasting up with Andersen boats most of the way.. Queue moves very, very slowly... Eventually try to lock up through first lock. Lock stops filling, Julie opens top gate, but level is still a couple of feet down from normal. Can't get out over the top gate cill. Julie goes off to investigate, and returns with a couple of chaps from another waiting boat and someone from the Boatyard. Turns out that one of the bottom gate paddles is not closing properly, and the first middle pound must have been dropping all morning. Boatyard Man forces the paddle shut, and the other chaps head off uphill to let some more water down. A couple of lock-fulls of water later, and we are out of the lock and on our way again. At Wardle Lock, the infamous lock-cottage resident is friendly and helpful, and insists on giving Katherine some sweets. That said, she had just bawled out the previous boat, a group of hirers who were sitting in the lock, all gates and paddles closed, waiting for their boat to rise presumably by magic. We call it a night at Church Minshull, and head off to the Badger for an excellent meal - advance booking is strongly recommended at weekends, but they managed to squeeze us in. Sunday 23rd April While we are having breakfast, a number of early morning speed-kings pass by without slowing. By the time we are ready to leave, two of the mooring spikes are almost out of the ground. We note that the speed-kings are mainly *not* hire boats... Call at Venetia Marina for an early lunch and more firelighters, then on to Barbridge for water. Barbridge is heaving, so after filling up we decide to trundle down to Hurlestone and back just for the exercise, then up to Calverly for the night. I did say that this was a leisurely pace... Monday 24th April Set off late from Calverly, and down the Bunbury staircase. Someone who Knows What She Is Doing sends two boats down to the middle level and two up to the middle level simultaneously, then orchestrates a great sorting out between the two locks - the whole thing is reminiscent of one of those sliding block puzzles with N squares and N-1 blocks. Then we continue North, passing an increasing number of working boats returning from the Ellesemere Port gathering. Late afternoon, we reach Christleton, and decide to carry on down into Chester. At Chemistry Lock, a BW "green-shirt" helps us through, and recommends mooring at Tower Wharf. We work down the Northgate staircase in the dusk with the assistance of one of the crew from a pair of boats working down behind us, and eventually reach Tower Wharf at 9pm. The basin is full to bursting. As we stop in the near-dark to contemplate our next move, a friendly face emerges from the BW "Heritage" boat Barnet, and we tentatively ask if we may breast up to them for the night. They agree, and we spend a very wet night in Chester. Tuesday 25th April It's still raining, and the water point is obstructed by a cruiser. We set off early for Ellesmere Port. we notice several pairs of nesting swans, lots of towpath being upgraded to cycle track, and, perhaps rather worringly, lots of "Military Training Area" signs that seem to have had pieces shot out of them... We reach Ellesmere Port by lunctime, and spend the rest of the day looking around the museum, shopping, and cleaning up. In the evening we have a very pleasant meal in the Waterside italian restaurant next to the museum, which looks as though it should be slightly snooty, but in practice welcomes a couple of scruffy boaters with an enthusiastic two-year-old with open arms. Katherine waves at a number of Russian ships as they head down the Ship Canal - I'm expecting the pen-friend letters to start arriving any day now. We have now perfected a repeatable method for lighting the smokeless fuel, but it still involves three firelighters and a priming charge of housecoal. Who cares, though? - it's very warm, in contrast to the weather. Wednesday 26th April Up bright and early (by our standards), and back towards Chester. Our objective for the day is to make it through Chester. By lunchtime the rain has stopped, and working up Northgate on our own we attract a small audience of confused tourists. Julie has to contend with answering their questions as well as working the gear. These locks are without doubt the most intimidating we have ever seen. At the top of Northgate we are joined by a Claymoore hire boat, which shares the remaining Chester locks with us. At Hoole Lane, we have a scary moment when one of the hire boat crew opens the top gate paddle far to early, but fortunately their boat if short enough, and far back enough in the lock to come to no harm this time. We moor just south of Egg Bridge and try and clean some of the accumulated mud off the boat. After half-an-hour with the mop, the beige patches have been moved round and spread out enough to be able to tell what colours the various bit of the boat are without the aid of a penknife to scrape the dirt off. Thursday 27th April Another late start, and a leisurely run up to Bunbury where we make our one concession to painted canalware, and buy a bucket to keep the coal in. We moor at Calerverly again, and head off to the Davenport Arms for food. The pub is a bit tatty, but the "house special" fish and chips, with mushy peas and bread-and-butter is worth it. Friday 28th April It's stopped raining! Stop at Venetian Marina for milk and to call at the chandlers. Buy some decent mooring lines for replace the hairy blue string we have been using so far. Then press on through Middlewich (no sign of Wardle Lock Woman this time) and moor above Big Lock. Katherine has become lock-mad over the last few days, and now sits happily on the stern deck while I drive and Julie works the locks. Julie and Katherine walk down to the Big Lock, and on their return report that an Alvechuch boat has been in some difficulty coming out of the lock, and got stuck across the canal. They freed themselves and moored up by the pub. Some time after 9pm, they came motoring past us, headlight on, heading towards the narrow locks. Saturday 29th April Only one lock today! And when we get there, we find members of the T&M society helping boats through and collecting donations. We wonder idly what on earth that hire boat had been doing last night, and how far they got. Then we set off for a gentle run back to Anderton, but on the way pass dozens of boats heading south. After we get back to Uplands, and make a pig's ear of the 90 degree left turn into the Marina, we walk up to the Alvechurch base to empty the loo and buy an ice-cream. The staff there are busy tearing their hair out - the hire boat that had passed us late last night was reported to be stranded aground somewhere inaccessible on the Middlewich branch... Andrew ==================== ajcowie(at)cix.co.uk -------------------- nb 'Regal Suki' ====================