TUNNELS

 

In the Tunnel

Our journey from Anderton to Manchester, involved 3 tunnels. Now, some of you might not know this but the Captain is not that fond of tunnels. However sometimes they are a necessary evil. When the builders of the canals met a hill that could not be scaled using locks then it had to be a tunnel. Some tunnels are wide enough to allow 2 boats to pass (the Captain hates these the most because we always meet an on coming boat at the worst possible place, and end up scrapping the side of the tunnel with the boat). But the ones on the way to Manchester are one way working, if its not possible to see the light at the end of tunnel (sorry for the pun) there are instructions at each end of the tunnel telling boaters at what time they can enter the tunnel.

Anyway back to the start of this journey, we shared the boat lift with NB Two Ducks from Aylesbury, and had a great time chatting with its Captain and crew. On leaving the lift you have to turn right even, though we were going left, there is a winding hole right by the lift and this is were the Captain turned us in the right direction. Unfortunately disaster struck when the rudder hit something in the water and was lifted out of skeg cup (or that’s what we think). The skeg cup is, as it sounds, a cup shaped part that the bottom of the rudder sits in and allows the rudder to turn, bit like a ball and socket joint. We still had steerage but need to try and get the rudder back into the skeg, so after we had winded we pulled over and the Captain tried to rectify the problem. After a bit of pushing and shoving he managed to improve the situation, but he is now of the opinion that there is something else causing the issue, as the tiller is very stiff to move. He will try to find out more when we get to clearer water, or wait until we get to Langley Mill and take the boat out of the water for blacking.

Hope this helps

We moored up before the first of the 2 tunnels for the night.

Barnton tunnel and Saltersford tunnel are quite close together. Barnton is the first and 572yrds in length, and yes, you can see the light at the end, so straight through this one. Saltersford is slightly shorter at 424yrds, but has more kinks than a kinky thing, so you can’t see the light at the end and have to wait for the right time to set off (half past the hour until twenty too the hour). Bearing in mind the instruments that the builders had to use over 200yrs ago, (none of the fancy stuff available today) its surprising there aren’t more kinks in the tunnels they built. But we made it through unscathed due to the Captains excellent steering.

Preston Brook Tunnel is the start of the Bridgewater canal, at 1239yrds its the longest tunnel and is another timed tunnel. It took us about 15mins to transit so not to bad. In 2 days we had spent 2235yrds in tunnels that’s 1¼miles approx.

The Bridgewater canal is one of the few canals that is not controlled by the Canal and River Trust but is owned by Peel Holdings, so is not covered by our license. However there is a reciprocal agreement between the 2 companies which allows us to use the canal for 10 days for free, 7days outward journey and 3 days return within 1 month and it has to be booked.

The Bridgewater canal was considered to be the 1^st canal built, although the Sankey canal opened in 1757 followed by the Bridgewater in 1761. However, it was the Bridgewater that caught the publics attention. The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, Francis Egerton had it built to transport coal from his mines at Worsley to Manchester.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgewater_Canal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_Canal

An old picture of us at Worsley

We passed the junction that takes you down to Runcorn, we have been down this branch before and enjoyed visiting Runcorn itself, we moored at Moore and took a walk to the pub, The Red Lion. Not much real ale on so the Captain had to make do with John Smiths. A lively locals pub with a decent menu and the food we saw looked good.

https://www.redlionatmoore.co.uk/

Our next port of call was Stockton Heath, and Thorne boatyard as we required a pump out, we were told it would be best if we came on Saturday as Friday was their turnaround day for the hire boats. So we arrived Friday afternoon ready for Saturday. After shopping at the near by Aldi we headed of to the London Bridge pub for a pint. This is a J W Lees pub, but only had a bitter and 2 pale ales on. The Captain plumped for the bitter but it wasn’t to his taste so we so headed back to the boat.

One of the big problems for boaters on this route is the lack of bins. On CRT waters the last bins were at the Anderton Boat Lift, and the next are 57 miles away at Burscough. There are no boaters bins on the Bridgewater, and you are expected to use the bins at marina’s and boatyards. So I asked as we got a pump out if I could get rid of our rubbish, the guy was very apologetic but said the bins were full, and he even had bags of rubbish that he couldn’t get in the bin until it was emptied. He did tell us we could use the bins at Stretford Marina, which was handy to know.

We stopped at one of our favourite places Lymm for the night. It is home to a number of pubs, a Co-op and Sainsbury’s local. The best pub, well for us, is the Brewery Tap, home to the micro brewery Lymm Brewing, and its sister brewery Dunham Massey. The Captain was not disappointed, with a choice of a mild and a porter.

https://lymmbrewing.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/dunhammasseybrewing/?locale=en_GB

Sunday and we headed for Sale, but didn’t make it, and stopped off at Altrincham. On our way we stopped for water and were joined by NB Leo, the Captain started chatting with Helen and Ian and it turned out they were related to our good friend Keith, (runs Swan Lane Wharf). Its a small world at times.

At Altrincham we did a little more shopping, another Aldi close to the canal, so handy, and the Captain picked up a delivery from Amazon.

And unless you’ve been living in a cave it was the football, England v Slovakia kick off at 5pm, so we headed to pub yet again, the Old Packet House. We managed to get an excellent seat even though it was packed, and it was definitely squeaky bum time, but the lads managed to pull off a last minute win and the pub exploded. The pub didn’t have a great choice of ales for the Captain and he made do with lager, but the food looked great.

https://theoldpackethouse.com/

And we won, yippee

We stopped at Stretford marina and the Captain decided to get some diesel so I didn’t feel so bad about using their bins, and then into Manchester with fingers crossed we could find somewhere to moor. The Captain had discovered that the usual visitors moorings were closed, as they were setting up a stage for a concert the next weekend. They never seem to bear the needs of boaters in mind when doing these things. At first it looked like we going to have to moor a little awkwardly against a high wall, but the Captain took a walk, and after chatting with a couple of the local boaters, he found we could use the empty permanent moorings whilst the visitors mooring were closed. Also rather worryingly, they also told him they had heard that Peel Holdings want to do away with all boats in Castlefields, don’t ask me why, very strange and short sighted in my opinion.

31 miles, 1 lock 3 tunnels and 2 canals.