From terry@talwaldron.freeserve.co.uk Sat Aug 28 19:58:59 1999 Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:22:18 +0100 From: Terry Waldron Reply-To: Canals To: Canals Subject: Trip Report - Cheshire Ring and Caldon Part 3 (long) [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Boat: nb Stella Crew: Sue and Terry Waldron Dates: 23 July to 6 August We have visitors for the day today so it is an early breakfast. After a phone call from Sylvia and Robert (our visitors) we go through the locks and moor again at the Boat, not a good mooring as it is ver difficult to get pins in. Sylv and Robert arrive, so its away and I hand over to Robert who used to own a narrowboat and knows these waters. The canal narrows again, is very wooded and if you look carefully you can see the remains of the limestone kilns nestling in the steep bank on the non towpath side. Reeds and wild orchids line the banks, a few kingfishers are seen darting along the banks. We moor at Consall Forge just in time to see a diesel hauled train, should have been steam, but it is Saturday and they only run steam on Sunday. Stop for welcome refreshment as again it is very hot. Away again to the winding hole at Froghall, Stella to high so we wind and moor up beside the copper works. We have lunch and set off back for Cheddleton where we drop off Sylvia and Robert. On our way back we meet up with Conwy and Caernarfon, a man climbs out of the hatch with a very professional looking video camera and proceeds to take a long shot of us passing - we are told by the steerer of the butty that he is making a documentary on Hotel Boats for BBC - maybe you will see Stella on the TV at some time.. They have enjoyed their day - Robert in steering all day and Sue and Sylvia sitting in the front well taking in the views. We carry on through the Cheddleton locks remembering the bridges are fairly low so we take the witches hat off the chimney. We final moor at Plank Lane Wharf, Endon. Sylvia and Robert pick us up at 1000 to take us to the Foxfield Railway which is about 10 miles away, I have a good look around and am surprised at how many locos they have there. They have the capability to have about 8 in steam - many much larger preservation sites could not beat that. I have a pleasant trip down to the station in the woods not far from the colliery the line used to serve. It's back to the boat and we are aiming to get as far as Stoke marina, we do not achieve it as just before we get to Milton we can see the sky blackening in front of us and hear thunder, we can see both sheet and fork lightening, it looks like we are going to get the first rain of our trip. We get to Milton and decide to moor, just as we get the second pin in the rain starts, it's almost like a monsoon for about 20 minutes but then it stops. We however decide to stay moored. We hear on the radio that there are floods not too far away, we have been very lucky. After dinner we try our luck fishing, it looks promising. Many local people walk their dogs here, many stop for a chat and tells us that there are freshwater crayfish here, but not large enough to eat - pity. We both catch a small roach. The evening air is pleasant, the sky has cleared and it looks as it will be nice tomorrow. More in Part 4 --- The UK Waterways Network - http://www.ukwaterways.net/ * bringing the inland waterways community together * You are currently subscribed to canals as: george@adiva.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-canals-407N@ukwaterways.net