Here I am Rune
Distance 0.1 miles
Total 691 Locks 26 Tunnels
Running total mileage 1047.4 miles
Possibly the shortest day’s travelling we’ve had
(disregarding days of rest) of only 0.1 miles today, although that did involve
2 locks. We are now as far along the Shropshire Union Canal as it is possible to
go without going down onto the Manchester Ship Canal (which we were overlooking
last night).
It is a nice idea to be able to moor up actually within the
National Waterways Museum amongst the boats. In terms of having a view, we were
possibly better off last night as we could overlook the Manchester Ship Canal
with the River Mersey beyond that, we could even see Liverpool John Lennon
airport, so an all-round interesting view. Here in the lower basin we are
moored alongside an old ICI chemical carrier called CUDDINGTON and that is
pretty much all we can see out of one side, the side of a boat. On the other
side we are looking up to the upper basin, again not much of a view, but we are
immersed in history!
The walk around the
museum was interesting and I think we assisted a group of schoolchildren
understand locking as we came into the museum area. They had just been given a
demonstration of how a lock fills and empties (no boat). We then came along and
they could then see how it all works with a boat in it, received thanks from
the teachers accompanying the schoolchildren although the thanks should have
been from us since they were all eager to help push the balance beams on the
gates to open them, saving the crew from too much work.
There are a lot of interesting displays here and I certainly
learnt quite a bit that I hadn’t known before (like how two horse drawn barges
travelling in opposite directions pass one another on the towpath) but
ultimately I was left with the impression that the museum is rather overwhelmed
by the amount of restoration that they have taken on. With the equivalent of
Euromillions Lottery win they could probably get everything restored and
maintained but at the moment (and presumably for the foreseeable future) they
have a lot of boats that are still ‘Work in Progress’. Boats are the sort of
things that even when restored still need to be maintained and a lot of their
Historic boats are made of wood. There is saying in boating circles “If you
hate someone give them a boat as a gift but if you really hate them give them a
wooden boat”. An ordinary boat is
somewhere to pour money, but a wooden boat is a whole lot worse!
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| Manchester Ship Canal |
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| Inside the National Waterways Museum |
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| RUNE moored in the museum |
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