Thursday 5th July 2018



Awoke this morning at just after 7am. It was hot outside already. We had another walk around Lymm and visited the market before setting off.

We left Lymm still heading in the Manchester direction. Stopping for water just before Little Bollington we carried on intending to wind before reaching Sale. We passed over the River Bollin Aqueduct and had a quick glimpse of Dunham Massey Hall along an avenue of trees. Going over the Dunham Underbridge was interesting. The original stone trough breached disastrously in 1971 and was replaced by a steel and concrete construction. The road below slopes down to pass under the canal and rises after. The Bridgewater Canal is wide and deep and there are no locks to contain a breach. So it would have taken a long time to stem the water flowing from the breach. The road and the whole area must have been badly flooded by this time.     

The Bridgewater has many of these “under bridges”.

We reached the winding hole on the edge of Sale only to find two wide beam working boats winding and being all over the width of the canal. One of the guys told us this was no longer a winding hole although it was plenty wide enough if they had not been blocking it. So we had to continue another ½ mile to wind in Oldfield Quay Marina.

We then retraced our steps only to catch the wide beams at the River Bollin Aqueduct with two hire boats coming in the opposite direction. Neither could pass, which lead to an interesting few moments.

Brenda jumped off at Agden Bridge to walk the 2½ miles into Lymm. This meant me having to let five boats pass that I had been holding up, only for four of them to pull over before we reached Lymm.

With Brenda back on, we carried on to Stockton Heath where we again called into Thorn Marine for more rope and whipping twine.








We passed under the A56 before

mooring nowhere near anywhere.

We had a barbeque for dinner.

Lovely.













Worryingly, just before we stopped there was a ticking noise coming from the engine room that will have to be investigated tomorrow once it all cools down.

Another blisteringly hot day. The bin is starting to smell again. We are finding there are very few facilities on the canal, and these located large distances apart that does not suit people that want a lifestyle of stopping regularly and not going for hours on end.  



Day Total: 0 locks; 16 miles; 0 Tunnels; engine running hours 4.9

Overall Total: 98 locks; 151 miles; 5 tunnels; engine running hours 91.2





   


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