Susie and Stephanie's Big Adventure

Day 6 – The Marple Flight and the Hunt for Moorings…

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Mum Driving into a lock on the Marple flight

I rarely resort to an umbrella, but it was chucking it down.

A tiring day as much of it was done in the rain.  As I mentioned before, it’s been a cold week.  Each day the forecast temperature has been lower than the previous one.  Despite that we had a very enjoyable day as (Susie’s) Mum and our friend Alastair joined us for the day.

We met at Braidbar boats in High Poynton and after a cup of tea, set off for Marple Junction.

We did stop for lunch and to water up before starting the Marple flight. We started that around 2pm and finished at 6.30pm.  We couldn’t have done them any faster as we only had to turn 1 and thanks to Mum and Alastair joining us, we had enough people to send an advance party to prepare each lock and everyone had a turn at doing everything.

Marple locks are a game of 2 halves,  the top half runs alongside the streets of Marple and includes some very lovely gardens.

The bottom 8 locks are in a much more countrified setting

The danger of a spinning windlass

I had a very nasty moment when in the wet my hand slipped off the windlass as I was winding down one of the paddles. Although I was holding the safety catch, I wasn’t quick enough at dropping it to stop the windlass spinning and my arm was badly bruised from the beating it received.  I was very, very lucky not to have been an ambulance case with a broken arm.

We dropped of Mum and Alastair near Hyde railway station, pulling up outside a row of houses.  The lady in number 4 very kindly called us a taxi which saved a lot of effort.

We would have stayed there overnight but I couldn’t find anywhere where I could hammer in a mooring pin.  The bank side path looked grassy but was solid stone from about 3 inches down.

After another couple of hours cruising looking for the nearest mooring point, we gave up and moored on the landing of the lift bridge just before we were due to join the Huddersfield narrow.  By this time it was 9.10, pitch dark and we were both very cold and tired.

According to the CRT man we met the following day, if we’d have gone through the swing bridge and traveled another 300 yards there were about 100 mooring rings we could have used.

Time and Distance:

4.5 miles on the Macclesfield canal before turning onto the peak forest canal.  7.25 miles on the peak forest including the 16 lock Marple flight.
11.75 + 16 = 28  9.3 hours.

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Day 5 – The Macclesfield Canal

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I’d just like to point out that it was a very cold week, so I was wearing at least 5 layers of thermals, jumpers and coats in all photos!

We enjoyed our mooring spot so much that we had quite a late start, it was 9.50 before we set off up the Macclesfield towards Bosley Locks and onwards. We had decided as the weather forecast was good, that we should push on as far as possible so we’d have less to do in the morning before meeting my Mum and family friend Alastair.

The Macclesfield up to Macclesfield is the prettiest canal I’ve been on so far,  even nicer then the Shropshire Union.  There are some very tight width restrictions which make for interesting driving, but on the whole we enjoyed a morning’s gentle cruising in the fine weather.

We arrived at the bottom of the Bosley flight at 12.45 and had a brief pause to get ready for the activity ahead.  The flight was unusual in that there were double gates at the top of the locks as well as the bottom and no gate boards, so to raise the boat I resorted to opening the paddle on 1 side and then waiting until the roof was level with the lock side before striding over to finish the job.  Undoubtedly slower than walking round, but less tiring overall.

The scenery round Bosley Locks was lovely

Thanks to a little help from some passing and interested walkers, we got through the lock flight without incident in 2.5 hours.  We didn’t have to turn many locks fully which helped although a lot of them were very leaky and filled up very quickly without help.

After the locks it was a straight push to Macclesfield and beyond.  The journey from Macclesfield was difficult as the boat felt like it was going against the flow the whole time, and it was difficult to steer. The time taken for each section bears this out.

We finally stopped for the night at 8.10pm.

Time Taken:  10 hours  (3 + 2 1/2 + 4 1/2 hours)

No Locks: 12

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Day 4 – Through the Harecastle Tunnel

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The 4th morning of our trip was Good Friday. After stopping to pick up a few supplies at the One-Stop across the road bridge we set off.

We left out mooring at 9.20am and cruised north past Wedgewood – into the potteries.

This could be one of my favourite offerings: Tackle, archery, boats and line dancing

The Stoke flight of 5 locks was our first real challenge.  Some deep and heavy locks to contend with.  At the last and deepest lock, Stephanie couldn’t raise the ground paddle, so I had to climb the ladder and help her.

Stock Locks – with two boaters who are moving to Slathwaite

After this adventure, we motored on to Harecastle Tunnel at a stunning 3mph.  We were lucky that we didn’t have to wait long for the tunnel and, as we’d been through the tunnel before, we were asked to go first in the convoy of 4 boats going through the tunnel.

Brick Bottles in the Potteries

At this point we discovered that the tunnel light appears to have been wired in backwards and we couldn’t make the the rear navigation light work, so Stephanie sat and held a torch pointing backwards to show the boats behind where we were.

Once out of the tunnel it was a short hop to the junction where the Macclesfield Canal joined the Trent and Mersey.  We needed to make a sharp right hand turn, which I completely messed up – and we ended up wedged across the canal.  One day I’ll get the hang of it!  I had to clamber off the front of the boat and push it round into the junction.

Looking down on the Trent and Mersey from the Aquaduct on the Macclesfield. Last time we were here we went through those locks on our way round the Four Counties Ring.

The Macclesfield canal has some very narrow bits in it where it looks like bridges have been removed.  Shortly after turning into the canal I slowed down to tickover to negotiate one such restriction when a couple came out of the cottage next to me.  The man held a long stick with a plate on the end of it on which was placed a carrier bag.  “For you” he said to me, pushing the stick in my direction. “We’re giving these to all boaters today just to say Happy Easter”.  I thanked them and took the bag, which we discovered held 2 hot cross buns.  It was very sweet of them and the hot cross buns were delicious.

We called at Heritage Marina to get gas and a pump out.  The pump out was £17 per tank, (not by time) and they did it for us which is nice. It’s more economical for us to get pumped out by time as we have 2 small tanks fitted instead of big one.  The very nice chaps there recommended a mooring spot nearby and 15 minutes later at 5pm we were moored up for the night.  Our earliest stop yet this trip.

10 minutes later the heavens opened.  Had we continued as per our original plan we would have been soaked through. Some days you just get lucky.

Parked up just in time…

Total Distance Travelled: 13.5 miles

Number of locks: 7 locks

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