Thursday 1st September
Finally, as Autumn approaches, some sunny weather! It has been warm and sunny all day today, hurrah. The day started with an hour down our weedhatch for Ken and Barry between them and I had a go right at the end. Another kapok filled cushion, like we had on the Rochdale, was extracted! No wonder we couldn’t get any speed yesterday, we thought it was because the canal was shallow, which it is, but apparently not.
We set off about 10am and travelled 4.5 miles and 13 locks to Uppermill, arriving at about 3pm. It was a very pleasant trip although at times the canal was very shallow and we were scraping the bottom. The bottom paddles on the locks were either hard or extremely hard to wind, even with my long windlass! We were in front so I was emptying for Barbara when we had left the lock.
The number of boats we have seen today, actually moving is precisely – none! We have passed only a few boats moored up on the canal, there are a few in Frenches Marina and 3 moored here with us. According to one chap moored here there are 2 boats waiting to go through the Standedge tunnel tomorrow. Not a very busy canal as I said before.
Uppermill used to be a mill town but is now very touristy with a profusion of clothes shops, gift shops and tea rooms and a nice park by the River Tame. There are four pubs in the main street too. The Saddleworth Museum and Art Gallery is situated here, we are near Saddleworth Moor.
We are a couple of miles from Diggle and the Standedge Tunnel so tomorrow we are going to walk up there and have a look round the visitor’s centre.
