Bollington

Here I am Rune

Distance 13 miles

Total 1136 Locks 62 Tunnels

Running total mileage 1592.8 miles

I carry on being quite impressed with the Bridgewater Canal. The only real issue is that there are not a lot of services along it (water, elsan, etc) but the actual structure is excellent. Brindley lined it with stone blocks so there is minimal bank erosion and it remains deep right up to the sides so mooring is always relatively easy, There aren’t many mooring rings so it is usually on the mooring pins but I can live with that. It has been quite busy on the canal today as there is a boat rally at Lymm over the weekend and it seems that some boats are arriving to ‘bag’ their moorings.

Since the price of fuel at Preston Brook Waters Meeting was pretty good (about 72p per litre with a 90/10 split) I decided that it would be rude not to take advantage of the price so we now have another full tank of diesel to last us into next month. Called in at Midland Chandlers in the hope of replacing the oil and oil filter that I’ve just used in the most recent service but their oil price was expensive and they didn’t have the oil filter. Will need to check out another Chandlery somewhere.

Tomorrow we should be onto the Leigh Branch of the Bridgewater Canal, possibly to Boothstown Basin. On the way is a bit of novelty of the waterways system, a swing canal bridge. Unlike most of the swing bridges we have passed so far where the road crosses the canal by this means, on this one it is the canal that crosses the Manchester Ship Canal by this means and it is the canal bit that swings!