My last post left you all with a little info on what you can expect from me. It has taken me a while to get this site up and running so my first few stops and stories have already been posted on my FaceBook page. Its worth quickly reading the posts through if you haven’t already.
I left you all at the point where I was moored up just outside Congleton, where once again I found a beautiful place to moor and posted a little video of the view from my boat. I have re-posted that above because it was just an absolutely spectacular view. On top of that the view on the other side was also amazing. The Cloud is a 1,000 ft above sea level peak that dominates the landscape of this area and can be seen from various spots along the canal.
It really is a most impressive sight, and changes both mood and look as the weather changes.
So after stopping a couple of days at Congleton I moved up to the bottom of Bosley Locks. This is the only real flight of locks along the whole of the 27 miles of the Macclesfield Canal and is really an area of outstanding beauty. There are twelve locks in the flight spread out over a mile of Canal. The total climb is 118 feet and it takes the canal over 500 feet above sea level.
Where I moored there were more spectacular views including the centre picture above. The view from the other side of the boat was also beautiful, with an even more spectacular via-duct for a railway than the congleton one.
Along the way up the canal the grapevine was operating at breakneck speed and I was told at least ten times that the locks were closed due to an accident with a boat getting caught in the first lock in our direction (the number twelve lock).
I chose to moor-up just past the last winding-hole (a winding-hole is a place on the canal where there is a cut out on the non-towpath side of the canal which means you can turn a narrow-boat around. It is winding as in winding a baby not winding as in winding up). I walked up to the locks the next morning to talk to the lock-keepers and find out what exactly had happened.
Apparently whilst travelling up the locks a boat had entered lock twelve and a fault with the entrance gate meant that water was flowing out of the lock when the gate was meant to be closed. This happened because the gate had not shut securely and the fact that the pond feeding the lock was not filled sufficiently.
In normal operation a pond or side pound in a lock will hold enough water to compensate for any leaks in the lock gates. Quite often the gates leak enough that the pound for a certain lock will not be filled enough, especially in the morning and so we are all well used to the lock keepers first filling the ponds/pounds before travel up or down can start in the morning.
According to the boat owner the front was lodged on the sill as the water emptied from the lock which meant he was left stuck in the lock until RCR (River Canal Rescue) could get him out.
A lock engineer visited the site on Sunday and found that the damage to the lock gate was not too bad but that there was detrirus under the gate, not allowing the gates to close properly. This was attended to on Monday morning and the volunteer lock keepers managed to get the boats that were waiting through the locks. I was actually the last boat allowed through before they shut the locks for more assesment.
It was an uneventful journey up, except after I had got up the top I could see a lot of moored boats that were pointing as though they were waiting to go down.
The canals are really filling up with babies now, geese, duckings, fish fry and tadpoles. With fields filled with lambs and calves the new life is amazing.
So after the locks it is on to Oakgrove where my carpenter Mike will meet me tommorrow morning to put the finishing touches to my bedroom.