Longest, Highest, Deepest.

Show me a man who greets passers by with a cheery “’ Mornin’ “ at 2pm and I’ll show you a man who hasn’t had his lunch. Late lunches on the move have been the order of the day. Shallow canals mean good moorings are hard to find so the day’s boating also tends to be a bit longer than usual.

“You dropped off again?”
“I was only having forty……well a hundred winks,” herself declares.
“I’ve opened 21 locks and walked 5 miles today!” himself responds.
“Well then,” she says,”no wonder I’m tired!”

From this gay badinage you may gather that our intrepid pair are on top form. Well not quite. Herself is still troubled with pains in the right side from her strained muscles/trapped nerve? Some days OK, others not; one consolation, ”It’s not stopping her sleeping!”

Rain showers there have been; some light, some heavy but none, thank goodness, quite like the stair-rods of that first day on the Macclesfield canal. After the Bosely flight of locks we continue lock free on the Mac with its elegant stone turnover bridges to Marple and take a right onto the Upper Peak Forest Canal to Bugsworth Basin. We recalled this as a quiet spot; not so now with the Whaley Bridge bypass close by. This remarkably restored set of basins, so rural and green, hard to imagine the smoke, dust and grime of the place in it’s working heyday, with it’s constantly burning limekilns and rattling tramway trucks bringing limestone down the inclined plane from the quarries. A hard life for the horse boater; a far cry from our leisurely boating life. A pleasant day spent connecting what we see on the ground with the sometimes ambiguous descriptions in the information literature.

In the terminal basin at Whaley Bridge a man with his radio controlled boat has to steam out of our way as we wind (boater speak for turn round ). A chat with him once we have moored as he is firing up a live steam powered launch. Himself parks her in a tea shop as he takes the fifteen minute walk up the main street to Coleman’s butcher .What a man will do to lay his hands on serious award winning black pudding and sausages!

For scenery you can’t beat the Upper Peak Forest Canal. It wanders high up on the limestone hillside giving views over the Goyt valley to the Derbyshire High Peaks. From Whaley Bridge you can see up to Kinder Scout and Edale Moor. “I want a view!” she says; and we find one, a convenient gate so we can see through the towpath hedge as we sit in the evening sun in the fore well deck. A rare spot with enough depth by the bank to avoid having to use the gangplank to bridge the gap between boat and shore.

Back to the Junction with the Mac at Marple and we start down the Lower Peak Forest with the 16 lock Marple flight, which along with the Bosely locks on the Mac are one of the most delightful flights of locks on the system. Now one of the joys of this way of life is the delightful people you meet, like young Oliver, his Dad and little sister Poppy. They had passed the locks many times by car but had decided that at last they must stop and have a closer look. Oliver helps with opening the gates as himself points out and explains the remnants of the horse boating days. What nicer way to spend a sunny morning than in pleasant conversation while boating.

At the junction with the Ashton canal we take another right and head for the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Now this is not a place for the feint hearted. Seventy four locks in the space of twenty miles as you climb over the Pennines and at the summit, the awesome Standendge tunnel, all 3miles 418yards of it; 17 years in the building, the longest tunnel on the system, the highest at 645 feet above sea level and the deepest being a maximum of 638 feet beneath the highest point of the moor above. This is serious boating. The restoration of this unique waterway is a tribute to the enthusiasm and perseverance of the Huddersfield Canal Society. But for them it would have been lost for ever.

As you enter the canal at lock 1W, you get the distinct feeling that not many boats travel this way. No canal side gardens with boats moored at the bottom of them here. It’s not until we are moored at Stalybridge that we meet our first boat. Now Stalybridge has embraced the canal and made a feature of the restored section through the town centre. Only thing that’s lacking is boats, instead it has litter; shame.

Along the length of the canal the remains of the once proud mills of the woollen textile industry that was the heart and soul of these valleys. At Uppermill (once a center of weaving, now a tourist hotspot with the Saddleworth Moor towering above it) a visit to the Museum beside the canal helps us understand the past life of this district. Now we can spot the hand loom weavers houses with their rows of mullioned windows on the top floor to provide maximum light for the weaver.

Shallows make the journey to Diggle and the Tunnel, shall we say, interesting. Our passage through the tunnel was booked well in advance, only three boats in each direction are allowed on each of Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The tunnel is only partially lined, with many sections of natural rock very narrow and not entirely straight, in the middle an S bend where the tunnellers working from each end missed each other by 23 feet. We are met by our British Waterways chaperones, one for each boat to point out, as we progress though, where the hazards and tight spots are. The gauging stick comes out and Avon Rose’s vital statistics are checked to ensure she will fit in the profile of the tunnel. There are in fact four tunnels; two single and one double track railway tunnel as well as the canal tunnel, all joined by connecting side tunnels. One hour forty minutes of intense concentration from himself sees us through, pauses every so often for our man to report via intercom in a connecting tunnel our progress. Herself sitting in the cratch nursing a very nervous small dog probably saw more than himself who now knows all about tunnel vision; although he did get taken up into one of the disused railway tunnels for a look. In contrast to the canal tunnel, tall, cavernous, completely lined and dead straight, the small semicircle of light clearly visible at each end.

On emerging we have to wait until the next day to descend the first 21 locks to Slaithwaite. Chronic water shortages on this east side mean we have to be chaperoned down by the boys in blue, only one paddle being used to empty locks to ensure that water is not lost over bywashes in a sudden surge of an emptying lock. Sunday and we take a rest day and enjoy the friendship of the folk of the parish church of Saint James.

And so the descent of the final 21 locks and the remarks recorded at the beginning of this posting. Here we are in Huddersfield and on the Huddersfield Broad Canal. Soon we will be on the Calder and Hebble Navigation and require a Calder and Hebble handspike to operate lock paddles, an item not dissimilar to capstan bars used on old sailing ships. “Most expensive piece of wood you’ll buy!” said the nice lady in the chandlery at Aspley Basin.

From Four Feet Away...........?

“From four foot way it looks great”, the Sage declared. ”If you want a perfect looking boat, don’t go boating.” You see, not only was it the wrong red but herself was not keen on the yellow either; the yellow coach lines on the cabin sides that is. Ivory is much better. So it’s back to Cut Signs for vinyl lining tape and semicircular corners. Problem is lining tape is uniform in width while hand painted lines are not, so we have a hint of yellow appearing around the new ivory lines, hence the Sage’s remarks; and he’s right. Looks fine viewed from 4 foot away and himself had to agree ivory looks better than the yellow, no matter how traditional yellow with green and red might be. Himself of course had a very self satisfied smile on his face, having just removed the last of the masking tape from his newly decorated cratch board, traditional diamond patterns. We have to agree it looks quite good.

And no, we haven’t spent the last two weeks beautifying our floating home, there has been some serious boating as evidenced by the remark of another Sage, “Look at all that lovely blacking you’ve been rubbing off!” Now waterways in cities we been through, Bath, Reading and Oxford have been teaming with boats, so it’s something of a surprise as we head northward through Leicester, a broad waterway with ornate bridges and canal side well furnished with mooring bollards to find………none. Well not quite, there were four on a secure pontoon mooring protected by a locked gate at Castle Gardens in the city centre. The anti-vandal locks on paddle gear and crude graffiti on all balance beams and bridge sides should, we suppose have given a clue. The pontoon was only 50 meters long and as evening was approaching we asked “Wandering Star” if we could moor alongside them (everyone else seemed to have disappeared into the city for the evening). We are of course now on the River Soar which like the Nene is susceptible to flooding and strong stream warnings after not much rain. Saturday night and we wander into the city centre and find a very pleasant bistro where unlike elsewhere we do not feel like Methuselah and his wife.

It’ Sunday morning and a hire boat has moved on so we can back up into the space they vacated. We attend Mass at Saint Mary de Castro close by where the local archdeacon preaches a “challenging “ sermon on the eve of an interregnum. This is sadly one of those inner city Anglo-Catholic parishes which in its introspection seems to have lost its way and appears to be dying on its feet. The sad thing is it needn’t be thus.

The River Soar to the north of Leicester passes through some lovely country and its noticeable how the density of boats rapidly increases the further we get from the city. This is the posh side of town. Flood locks installed to control water flows all have gates at both ends open so we sail straight through and water level markers on the exit from other locks are all well in the green zone.

An overnight stop in Loughborough to replenish supplies and utilize a convenient launderette. Our Zanusi studio washing machine is fine for everyday things but when it comes to the bed linen its more convenient to take everything we have to a launderette and get it dried all in one go!

And then we reach the vast width of the mighty Trent, water we have cruised before on the occasion, some years ago, when we famously went to a baptism in Nottingham by boat. Derewent Mouth and we are back on the cut, our old friend the Trent and Mersey which we have travelled before from end to end. At this end Shardlow is a canal historian’s delight. Once a centre of canal activity it has retained many of canal side warehouses from the days of the corn trade. Once we reach Burton (another town that appears to largely ignore its canal) we are back to narrow gauge locks and easier work for the boatman. The weekend again and this time in the lovely village of Alrewas,a favourite stopping point when we had a share in Scimitar and were based up the cut at Fradley junction. No ringing, work being done on the tower but once more the delight of an inspiring natural preacher, no notes, Just stand and tell it out. By chance it’s Alrewas’s “Open Gardens” weekend.

Now if you have one specimen tree in your garden we have found the one it needs to be. As we continue our northward journey we pause at Great Haywood at the junction of the T & M and the Staffs & Worcs, mooring opposite Shugborough Hall now in the care of the National Trust. The weather is delightful so herself decides a visit to the gardens is a must, dogs on leads are allowed so off we set. (We have visited the house on previous visits). We turn the corner and there is this amazing sight. A large shrub some 12 to 15 feet high covered (and I mean covered) in what appear to be four white flowers about two inches across with four petals, those on the top showing an amazing reddish pink flush. Closer inspection shows the petals are in fact bracts and the actual flower is small and green at the centre of these. We walk on, see the gardener and as himself approaches him he (the gardener) declares “Cornus kousa var. chinensis, Chinese Dogwood.” We are obviously not the first to ask. This is Jo Hawkes, 18 years as gardener at Shugborough. Apparently the flowers appear in May. As the season progresses they take on this pink flush. The fruit then appears, which is red and strawberry like followed by spectacular red autumn leaves. In Rugby himself had wiled away the hours chatting to Leaping Frog (you tend to know people by the name of their boat) who had been extolling he joys of National Trust volunteer working parties. Jo encourages to think about mooring up as we pass on our travels and spending a couple of days gardening with him. It’s tempting.

The weather has been glorious. We progress onto Stone, another favourite stopping point and thence on through the Harecastle tunnel (a 40 minutes passage).Then a left and a right to get us on the the Macclesfield ,another favourite canal with elegant stone bridges and rolling pastoral scenes as we head towards the Peak Forest national park. Now the weather has changed and we have frequent rain showers. This is none of your woosey southern rain. This is the stuff rodents asphyxiate in (come on; think about it). Himself on the back in the hatches, umbrella up, back doors closed behind him still getting soaked by the spray. You don’t have to ask were she is!