Monday 5th September
Another marathon today brought us 8 miles and 23 locks from Stalybridge to Piccadilly. This entailed a mile and a quarter and 5 locks on the Huddersfield and six and three quarter miles and 18 locks on the Ashton Canal and took 8 hours! The weather has been pretty awful – cold in fact, showery (including one hail storm) and very windy.
The Ashton Canal has a certain reputation for trouble but I have to say we didn’t encounter any today. The locks are quite slow going though. This is not because they are hard to operate, in fact they all have hydraulic paddles but because they all have anti-vandal locks top and bottom and there is no walkway on the top gate so there is a lot of walking up and down to be done! I must have walked about 12 miles today at least! Locks 1, 2 and 18 also have mitred top gates so there is even more walking round there!
By the time we got to lock 3 I realised poor old George had been shut in the boat for nearly 8 hours. We usually leave the doors open so he can get out in the cratch if he wants to but we had the doors shut and locked due to the reputation of the canal. There was a nice bit of grass there and there is no grass to speak of at Piccadilly, so while I was waiting for the lock to fill I got him off, he was really pleased, bless.
At lock 2 there is construction work going on and the towpath is completely closed, so I had to get on the front of the boat and get Ken to pull up to the lock and drop me off on the off side. Then he had to reverse back to the lock approach moorings on the towpath side to wait for me to get the lock ready. He couldn’t drift about in the pound because the wind was too strong.
Anyway, about 4-30pm we arrived in Piccadilly and moored up, hurrah! We obviously needed a pint after that so off we went for a couple before dinner. B and B didn’t come because Barbara said she couldn’t walk that far, bless!
Tomorrow we are going down the Rochdale Nine and on to the Bridgewater Canal and that will be it for locks for a while, yay!
