Brace yourselves, this is a long one!
Well, we left Northwich on Thursday morning, sailed down the river Weaver to the Anderton Boat lift; everything was going swimmingly, until we got on the Huddersfield canal.........
Before the Huddersfield Narrows as they are called we were on the Bridgewater canal. This led us to Manchester. Friday night moored in Manchester and we were expecting trouble but luckily nothing happened. Lauren and I went on a big night out, well, two drinks and home in bed by 10.30, we had a massive day planned on Saturday, 28 locks, most of them bow hauling so the last thing we needed was a hangover. We were disturbed from our beauty sleep by a massive firework display at 11.00 which was lovely, if a little noisy.
Saturday morning dawned and we left bright and early 07.50 to be precise, the plan was to get through Manchester city centre before the kids all woke up and started causing trouble, what we forgot to take into account was the adults who hadn’t been to bed from the night before yet!
Poor Lauren, she has been educated in things a young girl should not know about, let alone witness and the goings on under some of the bridges are not very salubrious and possibly even illegal.
After recovering from the initial shock she was ok, and the three lads (yes THREE!) were quite chatty and friendly after they got over the embarrassment of being caught, although John thinks this might be due to copious amounts of drugs rather than being particularly sociable.
There were double locks coming out of Manchester so we were breasted up (safety in numbers) but as we got to the suburbs the locks became narrow again and we started bow hauling.
The scenery was very industrial, lots of Victoriana at its best. Twiddly wrought iron, stone masonary, fancy brickwork lots of windows and big tall chimneys. It must have been quite spectacular in its hey day.
We cruised along and spent the night at Portland Basin, we had a choice here, turn right to Marcle or straight on to Huddersfield. We should have turned right, there was a reason none of the other boats were going straight on........
Hanna’s Dad said he felt like he was digging his own grave and he had a bad feeling, and this was before we even hit any problems.
The plan was to have what we knew would be a long hard day, slogging up to the Diggle locks, lots of bow hauling and lots of lock turning, this was ok, because we were ready and prepared for that. What we were not prepared for was the broken paddle which drained the pound, making it impossible to pass the boats through, the 22 shopping trolleys, one push chair, a couple of chairs and a bike which were dumped in the canal and then the stroppy British Waterways personel who turned up and told us they were closing the canal for two days while they sorted the problem out.
It was only 11.30 and we still had miles to go.
Luckily the guests were all seasoned canal boaters, were ready for an adventure and very understanding, and it is amazing how a cup of tea and a slice of cake makes the world seem like a better place.
We were grounded in Staleybridge, not the most exciting place, but they have a massive Tesco, so never being one to miss an opportunity, Hanna went grocery shopping and topped up the cupboards.
The water had been flowing down and filling the pounds all night so an executive decision was made and we continued on. By this time the schedule was blown and there was no chance of making Standage tunnel in time as it is only open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so we slogged on just to see how far we could get. Not far.
We had to work hard for every lock we passed. Every pound was low and the motor boat was dragging on the bottom. We spent most of the time stood on the roof, gondalering the boat along, or pulling it along by the ropes , sheer man power, or more to the point in this case, pure girl power. Most of the paddles were very stiff and difficult to wind, and just to add insult to injury, it started raining, but we kept singing! And laughing- well, it was that or crying, and everyone was wet enough from the rain already.
And then, suddenly, we turned a corner and the views opened up and the scenary was amazing, it was worth all the hard work to get here after all.
We got a special concession from BW to go all the way up to the tunnel entrance on a day when the tunnel was closed, and the guests got a taxi to the other side and went around the visitor centre and on a special trip into the first bit of the tunnel. While they were doing this, we were slogging our way back down whence we had just come, trying to claw back some lost time and try to get back on schedule.
All the problems we had had getting up, we had to go through again while going down, when we stopped for the night we had to stop where the boat stopped, it got stuck on a rock and refused to budge, we didn’t even bother tying up that night, and in the morning we had not moved. Girl power rules again! We got all the guests to stand on the front of the boat, Hanna was on the motor roof with a pole and Lauren and I were pulling while John revved the engine and poled at the back, “one, two, three HEEEAVE!” seems to have been the motto for this cruise.
Eventually we moved, and eventually we made it back to Staleybridge. Not where we were meant to be I hasten to add, we should have been in Huddersfield on the other side of the Pennines, but all plans are changeable.
Day off WOOHOO, didn’t move all day, just vegged out on the boat, the only black cloud hanging over us was that we had to do it all again with the new guests tomorrow.............
