Sunday 4th September
Today we have travelled 3 miles and 7 locks from Mossley to Stalybridge and are once again moored outside the Chinese restaurant. The trip took a lot longer than we anticipated because the boat which left about an hour and a half before us got held up along the way by an empty pound. According to them the old boy who had been moored at Uppermill when we got there had gone down the locks this morning and had left a paddle open and drained the pound. Anyway they had phoned BW and been told someone would call them back but no one did.
In the end they decided to let some water down from the pound above but they were taking a long time sorting it out. I let another lot down from the lock I was in and by the time I did that a BW guy had arrived and asked me what was going on. I told him and he said the water level looked ok to him but he was looking at the pound before the one which was low! Anyway he went off to let some more down from the previous pound and I went to find out what was going on ahead. The first boat were still trying to decide whether there was enough water for them to continue so Barry said he would go first if they didn’t want to. They said they were going to have breakfast first and wait for the BW bloke.
So we both passed them and carried on into Stalybridge. By the time we got there B and B were moored outside the Chinese restaurant and there were a load of drunks sprawled about the place on the low wall right near where we wanted to pull in! We were going to go down the next lock to the other BW moorings but these were chocker with bloody anglers! We pulled in behind B and B and hoped for the best with the drunks. One was asleep laying on the wall, one was wandering about with a bottle of sherry, one (a woman) was sitting slumped forward, occasionally raising her head and mumbling and the other was a very talkative one and he was trying to chat to us all the time.
There was a BW barge moored here too but some kids had let the ropes off so it was drifting about and after we came through the bridge it ended up right across the canal. Some lads managed to get on it and grab the rope and Ken helped them to moor it up again. Barry chained our boats together and to the bollards just to be on the safe side.
We took it in turns to go to Tesco’s so we didn’t leave the boats unattended. I don’t expect the drunks would have broken in to the boats, in broad daylight, in front of the Chinese restaurant. In fact they probably wouldn’t have done anything like that at all but better safe than sorry. It started raining a bit and the one who was asleep woke up and went. Eventually the others left as well and although they had been no trouble to us at all, it was a relief.
Tomorrow the delights of the Ashton Canal and Piccadilly in Manchester await us, deep joy!
