Chester

Here I am Rune

Distance 1.9 miles

Total 686 Locks 26 Tunnels

Running total mileage 1038.4 miles

As planned, here we are in Chester, moored about a quarter of a mile from the city centre. I have to say that it is the awesome thing about this travelling by narrow-boat, how you can just rock in the centre of a city, moor your boat and just stay there for free for a couple of days. The plan is to take in the sights of Chester tomorrow before possibly moving on Friday. Alternatively we may just move beyond the triple lock staircase on Friday and stay another couple of days since that is also within a quarter of a mile of the city centre.

There were no particular dramas in today’s trip, 4 locks without any real difficulty, although Chemical Lock was leaking badly from the bottom gate which meant opening the top gates when the lock filled was difficult since it never really got to the state of being properly full.

Our hope of finding an  Elsan emptying point by Hoole Lane lock was rather dashed, the building was still there but the Elsan had clearly been blocked off. Since the next emptying point was just below the triple lock staircase, which we don’t intend to pass through until Friday, we needed to improvise a bit since 2 out of our 3 cassettes are full. The solution was to assemble the bike and trailer and trail the cassette across town to the emptying point by The Wharf. Fortunately when wrapped in a plastic bag and stored in a plastic box I don’t suppose many people realised what I was towing!

Hope to include some photos tomorrow of the sights of Chester.