Northwich

Here I am Rune

Distance 6.3 miles

Total 3665 Locks  232 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5486.6 miles

Today could best be described as a day when one should not move on, unfortunately since we need the weekend shopping, it was a necessity to move to get to Northwich, and a very wet trip it was! As we reached Northwich the rain could fairly be described as being of biblical proportions and was certainly coming down as hard as any monsoon rain could.

We timed the tunnel trips pretty well since Saltersford is a timed entry allowing a 20 minute gateway to get through each hour, we arrived 2 minutes after the gateway had opened so had plenty of time to navigate a pretty bendy tunnel. When you enter it you cannot see the other end until you are nearly halfway through. The second tunnel, Barnton tunnel does not have a timed entry so you have to check it is clear before entering, all well and good but you can’t see the other end until you are actually in the tunnel entrance. On this occasion I thought I saw an approaching tunnel light, so switched my light off and reversed out of the tunnel entrance only to find that I had obviously been baffled by something and there was no boat in the tunnel, so I then went through.

Upon arriving at Northwich all of the new pontoon moorings were already full so I’ve moored on the quayside just below the road bridge, with the amount of rain we’ve just had however and the fact that there is noticeable flow on the river, I’ll need to keep an eye on the river levels since, not being on a floating pontoon, if the level rises our ropes are likely to tighten.