Middlewich

We started at 7.30am today with the intention of finding a mooring in Middlewich around midday.  Whilst we were on rings last night the mooring was actually overgrown with long grass and weeds.  A hire boat crew was much more fortunate arriving late in the early evening to find a vacant prime mooring in front.  Well cut grass and even bollards.  It’s even very handy to the lock.

We were boat three leaving in the morning and the closed hire boat curtains were starting to twitch! I wonder if they realised they had made an error?

Having two crews and dual locks enabled us to make good progress.  Jan was even raising the top paddles on one of the locks for the boat following us <good girl!> Unfortunately there were a few locations where one of the duel locks was either closed for maintenance or had been decommissioned.

The lock to the right in the above photo has been decommissioned

I’ve now been using the Mio PDA and the Waterway Routes canal maps for the last couple of months and have started to find them almost indispensible.  Jan uses our old Pearsons Guides to see the ‘big picture’ whilst I find using the gps maps very useful for precisely identifying our location whilst cruising.

I’m sure I can do more with the functions on the Mio in combination with the canal maps.  But I’m currently too busy being retired to find the time!

One thing the Mio won’t tell me is when we are likely to find a queue at a lock.  It started to get congested for an hour as five boats queued to go down and two waited to come up.  Unfortunately this caused a ripple effect at the remaining locks.

Peter & Margaret on Kelly-Louise followed Waiouru in to Middlewich where we moored above Kings Lock.  The mooring is beside a busy road but the location does ensure we will receive a good TV signal.

After lunch Peter, Margaret and I wandered down to the toyshop (Kings Lock Chandlery) for a browse.  It”s interesting how anything related to ‘marine’ acquires a new price.  I noticed the price of the snap on hose coupling we purchased in the Wednesday market at Market Drayton had moved one decimal place from £0.50 to £5.  Fortunately we weren’t in need of a replacement having purchased three spares at the market.  However I did need a replacement ‘nappy pin’ for the one I left behind (it’s not lost) in the cut at our Red Bull mooring.  I also purchased some Owatrol on the advice of our friend Bill the boat painter in Newbury.  He assures me if it is added to the paint it will inhibit rust and make the paint flow better.  Hopefully that will mean no brush marks in the paint.  I hope you’re right Bill because it wasn’t cheap!

Tomorrow it’s a left turn towards Barbridge Junction.