Saying good-bye to the north west

The excitement of the Bridgewater Canal opening a day early on Tuesday was over shadowed by the unfolding news from the terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena. Such shocking news and so, so, sad as Tarleton, where we’ve spent 4 months over winter, lost two young girls in the attack. Saffie was 8 years old and in the year above Nikita at Tarleton Community Primary School. It’s such a small village school the pupils all know each other. We helped at the school Christmas fayre and the Macmillan cake sale and attended all the assemblies over winter. The poor headmaster had to address the press. Heather’s found it really difficult going to & from school, trying to avoid the huge amount of film crews, photographers and police at the school gates. The other girl, Georgina, was 18 years old and did a placement at Magnus & Lance’s nursery over winter as part of her course. Heather & the children attended the vigil and placed some of their glass painted jars with a candles in. The villagers have put pink ribbons on all the trees and lamp posts. Saffie’s mother remains critically ill in hospital.

Thanks to Colin of the Wool Boat for the Pics http://thewoolboat.co.uk/

So today we are moored on the Bridgewater Canal. We made an early start with Carole and Colin, from The Wool Boat. Just as well as it’s getting pretty hot. Colin reports for some of the canal press and wanted to take photos of the workman finishing on Tuesday evening and he was thrilled it actually opened and he could snap the first boats through, John tagged along too. We are only able to stay on the Bridgewater Canal for 7 days with our CRT licence, so over the next couple of days we’ll be heading for Preston Brook where it ends. We need to go back to Braidbar Boats as we have a couple of bits that need seeing to. On the way we think we’ll be passing through Middlewich when their folk and canal festival is on, so it’s be rude not to attend.

Liverpool seems such a long time ago now. We had glorious weather for the whole time, apart from the day we left, it was pouring & very windy. We paid for a few extra days there as Ada & Dale wanted us to view the venue they’ve chosen for their wedding. The train to Milton Keynes is less than 3 hours and Dale was here to meet us. It was an action packed weekend, dinner at his parents house on Friday. We were up bright & early to meet the wedding planner, who just happens to be our niece Alice. We rather over stayed our allotted time at the venue, however, we got to taste the type of food they want for the evening buffet and then on to see my sister Louise. Then we all went to Dunstable in the evening. Edmund was in Luton visiting friends, so we all met up for a Wetherspoons breakfast before saying our good-byes.

Steam on the dock

What an excellent weekend with Steam at the Dock. There were toot toots and honk honks echoing around the buildings all weekend from all the steam engines. With quite a range engines from a small steam powered row type boat, narrow boats ‘Whistle down the Wind’ and ‘Emily Ann’, 2 launches and 2 tugs ‘Daniel Adamson’ and ‘Kern’. 

The smaller vessels that could get under the bridge from Albert to Salthouse Dock did several trips in front of our boat. Both of the narrow boats however, had to lower their funnels to get under the bridge. On the dock side there was a train from the Snowdonian Railway, traction engines full side and tiny ride on ones, steam lorries and a little milk float. In addition two shire horses and street performers.

 

 

It was dismal and very chilly, but dry on Saturday, I in fact had to light the fire. Sunday was gloriously warm and sunny. Heather, Jason and the children came down from Southport on the train as we anticipated parking to be a nightmare with the steam event and Liverpool playing Southampton. 

 

We had a ride on ‘Palmerston’ the steam train, then we had a look around the ‘Daniel Adamson’ which has been fully restored to it’s original décor. 

 

Nikita and Magnus were totally fascinated by the jelly fish swimming by. Plus, they got really excited when a shrimp or fish swam by too.

Lunch time John and I nipped to get us all KFC.

Friday evening we put up our bunting and fairy lights in quite strong wind and it stayed up. I was shocked that none of the other narrow boats here didn’t decorate their boats too. 

Bye bye Liverpool

We left Salthouse Dock in Liverpool bright and early this morning, gosh a week goes SO fast when you’re having fun. The CRT chaps were waiting for us at Mann Island lock at 08.00 for our assisted passage up the Stanley flight and onto the main line. Luckily we had another narrowboat to accompany us up the locks.

We are now moored at Litherland at the CRT yard, what a tremendous day, warm and sunny. Lyn and Kevin gave us a little portable BBQ before we moved onto the boat and today is the first opportunity we’ve had to use it. We’re staying here for 2 nights and then heading back to Liverpool, that’s 5 nights earlier than we’d initially planned. There’s a weekend of steam on and around Albert and Salthouse Docks and there was a free slot to decent the locks on Friday so we jumped at the chance to be back there. I’ve got our bunting and fairly lights out ready to put up for the festivities.

We’ve had an action packed week and the one of the highlights was going up the tower of the Anglican cathedral, it was a beautifully clear day and we could see for miles. It has the largest peel of bells in the country, 13 bells and the bell Great George the larger than Big Ben. The belfry looks very empty and clean compared to St. Margaret’s Church, Edgware, where I used to ring in the 1970’s. We attended an organ recital there too, amazing as they have the largest pipe organ in the UK. The other highlight was a trip down to the historic Liverpool wet dock, the first commercial wet dock in the world.

We have visited the Liverpool World Museum, Museum of Slavery and part of the Museum of Liverpool. We still have a fair list of places to visit next week too. We’ve chatted to lots of Scousers at the pub’s we’ve visited.

Yesterday evening I joined a knitting group at Cafe Nero. I was expecting hoards of knitters from the city, however, there 5 lovely gals with just a couple of locals the others from either sides of the globe. They made me very welcome and I came away with a huge list of ‘got to sees’ that they recommend.

And we’ve just loved having the on tap electricity, no immersion heater, electric kettle or having all the lights on for the next couple of days though. The forecast is good so our solar panels should charge the batteries nicely.

Ferry across the Mersey

 

We had a wonderful journey to Liverpool yesterday, sunny but chilly and a slight breeze. There were two other narrow boats doing the journey with us. The CRT staff were waiting for us at Hancock’s Swing bridge. There are two swing bridges on the stretch into Liverpool that are for major roads, so to minimise traffic disruption the trust staff operate the bridges for us at set times during the day. There was a new member of the Trust’s administration staff out with bridge and lock keepers seeing ‘what it’s all about’, she had a go at operating the bridges and locks for us. 

 

Once at the bottom of Stanley Locks she hopped onto our boat for a ride into Salthouse Dock. 

 

Leaving St Nicholas tunnel

Entering Cunard Tunnel

It seems so odd cruising along such huge spaces and through new tunnels that don’t leak onto you. 

 

 

Mann Island

Canning Dock

Princes Dock

Pump House pub, Canning Dock

Entering Albert Dock

There is a new stretch of navigation cut through one of the in-filled docks which is named ‘Sid’s Ditch’. Sid was one of our volunteers who helped us down the locks. 

Sids Ditch

 

The passage into to Salthouse Dock from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was opened in 2009. There are two tunnels to navigate through. We had a slight wait at Mann Island lock as there is drilling work in Canning Dock. You feel so tiny against the other vessels in the docks and they are smaller than the major sea going vessels that used to dock here.

 We feel like we’re living in the laps of luxury as we have free electrical hook up, which means we can use the laptop as long as we like, boil the electric kettle, have the immersion heater on, use the washing machine and I ‘may’ even do some ironing. It’s a hive of activity around the dock, along with all the sight seers there is an international Taekwondo competition on at the ‘Echo Arena’. All the teams are milling around in their brightly coloured kits. 

Sunset over the Mersey

Last evening we strolled along the river front, the tide was out and we could see a wrecked boat and the wheels of the trucks that used to convey the cargoes from ships to warehouses and a beautiful sunset. We went as far as sea lock at Brunswick Dock where the boat we shared the locks with yesterday will be going next week, they can’t wait for the Bridgewater Canal to open so are going across the River Mersey and into the Manchester Ship Canal to access the Shropshire Union Canal at Ellesmere Port.

 

 Today we had an open top bus tour around the city which included a Mersey Ferry trip. Luckily the front of the upper bus deck had a roof as it poured with rain. We have a list of places we’d like to head to, since the bus trip. By the time we went on the ferry the rain had subsided and the wind picked up no end. There were large waves on the river and I had to take off my peak cap for fear of it blowing away. The River Mersey is a mile wide at this point. We stopped off for lunch at Seacombe and then jumped back onto the ferry to Woodside where we visited the U-Boat exhibition. Birkenhead was just so not what we imagined it to be like, very quiet, with very few people about and many shops closed down. We are so pleased it wasn’t so windy or rainy yesterday for our trip into Liverpool.

This is what happens when a depth charge explodes