The Wigan Flight in the Pouring Rain

We have knocked over four days cruising since my last post. Sunday was spent cruising to Crooke which was only a few hours and a couple of locks but was an ideal (and safe) place to moor before doing the Wigan Lock Flight on Monday. Passed this large gaggle of Canadian Geese on the way, they seemed to have bred well the last couple of years.

Our Crooke Mooring

Last night (Monday) was spent in Adlington. It had been a long wet day that had started at our Crooke mooring around 9:30am just after the rain had stopped; it had been forecast to rain pretty much all day. We could either run the engine for five hours to charge the faulty batteries or charge them as we worked the locks so off we went. A short cruise to our first lock, which was against us and needed to be emptied before entering, only twenty-four to go for the day! We didn't have much luck with the next four locks, the fifth was even worse when we found the top gates open and the paddles up. It's hard enough doing your own locks without doing locks for others as well! Passed this guy on the way through Wigan Wharf, he hadn't moved when we were heading down to Liverpool.

Took us nearly twenty minutes to complete that lock and it started raining again to add insult to injury! We cruised around the corner to begin the Wigan Flight by ourselves in the pouring rain when a fellow from a boat ahead of us came down with an offer to tie their little 15 (or so) foot boat to Serafina and they could do all the lock work while I did all the boat management...sounded like a deal. Rachael was happy, as the boys insisted she go inside out of the rain.

Heading across the pound, boats tied together, still pouring rain, NB Barge 41 tied to Serafina. The short boat did create a few headaches, we tied it towards the centre and the stern but with hindsight it may have been easier in the locks to tie it further forward to keep Serafina's bow from pushing across the lock. A special mention about Lock 75. It took both the guys and for a minute it looked like I would have to climb out of the lock and help too, to close one of the rear gates. CART must know as this flight is regularly worked by volunteers.

We knocked over the twenty-five locks by around 3:30pm, most of it done in the rain, it hardly let up. Once at the top of the flight the boys untied their boat and headed off they still had another five or six hours to get to Blackburn. We stopped at the Services, filled with water and headed off to moor at Adlington. Monday night is not the best night to eat out at a pub, we should have remembered that! No one was serving food so we settled for Chinese takeaway.

It was only a short one today to recover from our long day yesterday. We are currently moored near Chorley, in the Botany Bay Visitor Moorings along with half a dozen other boats. We dropped into the Botany Bay Boatyard around midday today to see if they could resolve the issue we have with our leisure batteries but unfortunately, after half an hour of checking, we definitely know there is something wrong but couldn't pin it down. We have a plan and hopefully a technician will catch up with us on Friday to resolve the issue. In the meantime we are in power conservation mode!

While we were moored at the boatyard, waiting for some help with the batteries, they were launching a boat after blacking the hull. Not the first time I've seen this but interesting nonetheless.

 

Once moored we took a walk into Chorley town centre. Apparently Chorely is an old market town and it was market day so there were extra shops on top of a reasonably large shopping precinct, most situated on pedestrian malls.

On our way to the town centre we passed a large retail precinct as well, so there are plenty of shopping opportunities here.