We had consistent rain overnight at Wheelock and the morning wasn't terribly good either, it was a good morning to sleep in. The rain began to clear later in morning, enough so that we thought we would take a chance and head off for Middlewich. Despite our confidence in getting three rainless hours we donned our wet weather gear anyway. It turns out the wet weather gear was needed after a couple of hours cruising, we spent 15 minutes sitting under Bridge 163 in the Booth Lane Locks when the rain started to really pelt down. The rain finally eased and we headed on past British Salt, hard to believe we eat so much salt!
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| So much salt! |
We opened the bottom gates of Kings Lock at Middlewich to find the junction basin with three boats already jostling for position. We seemed to be the easiest to sort out as we just wanted go straight across the junction, which we did. Three more locks, a water fill and we were moored up near the park for the next few days.
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| Waterpoint Middlewich |
A couple of days break gave us an opportunity to do a bit of shopping for the essentials. Rachael managed to swap some books over as well as getting rid of an additional half dozen books. Our day off turned out to be cleaning day, continuing to get the boat back in shape.
On Friday after our short break in Middlewich, Anderton was only a short three hour trip with one lock; Big Lock at Middlewich. A fine sunny day for cruising we were trying to get to Anderton and get a booking on the boat lift today rather than Saturday when it would be a lot busier. The canal widened in a few spots along the way becoming quite wide although the warning signs indicated it wasn't terribly deep.
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| Passing one of flashes on the way to Anderton |
Arriving at Anderton around 2pm and checking with CART we managed a 3:45 slot giving us plenty of time for a cuppa. Come our booking time we cruised across the aqueduct and into the lift caisson, tied up and enjoyed the ride down the 50ft to the Weaver Navigation below. Built in 1875, the Boat Lift is a marvelous piece of engineering.
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| Heading for the aqueduct |
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| Across the aqueduct |
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| The view from the top |
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| Moving into the caisson |
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| The other caisson going up as we descend |
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| Moving out of the caisson on to the Weaver |
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| The view back |
We headed off upstream for our overnight mooring at Northwich, little more than a half hour cruising time.
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| Coming into Northwich, swingbridge in the background |
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| Our mooring at Northwich |
We plan to spend the next five or six days down on the Weaver before heading back to Nantwich for our boat blacking appointment.
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