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| One of the two reasons not to moor at Marple junction (more later) |
On Wednesday morning we
cycled almost all the way back to Whaley Bridge to get some eggs from a nursery
garden that we visited last week, called Secret Garden. They sell eggs and plants from a stall with
an honesty box and as you probably know, we like to buy unstamped eggs and give
our custom to people who use honesty boxes.
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Secret Garden’s wares at Carr Farm
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Heron fishing from the
towpath on our bike ride
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When we got back home, we
had lunch and then set off for a cruise to Marple to fill up with water.
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| Leaving our mooring at Strines (with one of the large Peak Forest canal milestones by the wall) |
It was yet another hot
sunny day and parts of the journey were in welcome shade now the leaves are
nearly all out on the trees.
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Welcome shade when cruising
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| Welcome shade when operating a lift bridge |
The water point at Marple
is back on the Macclesfield canal so when we reached the junction we reversed
into the Maccy until we reached the water point.
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| Reversing into the Maccy – note how we can tell the strength and direction of the cross wind by looking how my hair is blowing |
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New sign at Marple services (although why it's for one boater I don't know)
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I was astounded to see the
sign above as it appears that all the talk about CRT rebranding wasn’t a
joke. I was astounded because of the
thought of all the money it costs to rebrand any large organisation, but why
should a charity rebrand, particularly one that needs funds? Surely the money would have been better spent
on some of the many maintenance and emergency works they are facing at the
moment. It’s not as if they have
competition from any other charities.
Whilst waiting for the
tank to fill we put the washing machine on to get the towels washed and sat
outside to eat our fruit salad. Once
filled up we went back onto the Peak Forest canal and moored up just round from
the junction as we wanted to check on progress on lock 15.
When we arrived at the
lock we saw the top gate had been lifted out of the water and put back in place.
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Top gate now reinstalled
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Most of the workers were
gathered around a crane that was lifting one of the bottom gates into
position. They had done quite well, and
I had even videoed them, when the foreman shouted that one of the lads near the
gate didn’t have his hard hat on. I don’t
quite understand the reasoning but whilst the lad went to get his hat the gate
was lowered back down onto the earth dam it had been laying on.
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Gate being lowered back down
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We wandered off into town
as we needed to go to the Post Office and do a few other little jobs. On the way back, we went back up the
flight. This heron was either sunbathing
or exposing itself to a Canada Goose:
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Back at lock 15, the gate
had been moved again and was now laying on the pavement ready for the next
stage: lifting it over the lock bridge and into position.
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We went back to the boat
and set about moving back down the Peak Forest to a nice spot we had noticed at
Marple Ridge.
It was then when we
realised the mooring at Marple wasn’t the best.
First of all you need to be an acrobat to get the lines off the chains
and then remove the chains. I know it doesn’t
look steep but I actually felt I could have easily slid in – see picture at the
top.
It then took us about ten
minutes to move off the mooring as a large obstruction in the water prevented
us going forwards, so we had to reverse back but the wind kept catching the
front end making it difficult to get lined up without hitting other boats.
We finally got away and
moored a mile away at Marple Ridge.
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Our mooring for Wednesday night
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So, on Wednesday we
cruised for three miles but in the end were only a mile from where we left in the morning 😉
We are still hopeful the
locks will be open on Friday evening so will probably have a little cruise on
Thursday to turn around and be ready for going down the locks. We’ll also make sure we’ll go back to check
on progress on lock 15.
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