The opposite direction

Today we decided to walk in the opposite direction. However before doing that son and I walked south along Winnington Lane.  This took us over the River Weaver via Winnington Swing Bridge.  This area consists of a number of large chemical plants.

Winnington Swing Bridge

Almost all these plants appear to be derelict and in the process of being demolished.  This map extract shows the canal and River Weaver.  The red arrow points to the location where the industrial plants are being demolished and the land prepared for residential housing.

 

The one above was on the northern side of Winnington Lane and also appears to be derelict.  This next photo shows the other side of the large plant in photo 2 above.

The demolition and remediation of the are can be seen in this next photo.  I wonder how heavily the land was polluted and just how well the remediation has been done.  Will the new home owners know or even check?

From here we walked back to the River Weaver and along the path beside the river to reach Saltersford Locks.  The river has obviously been used by some large vessels in a previous life.  The size of the bollards, locks and swing bridges are the most obvious clue.

There are a number of attractive mooring spots between the Anderton Boat Lift and Saltersford Locks.  It’s very quiet and rather rural.  There were only three boats moored on the entire stretch.

It was near here that we had a meeting with a CRT lengths man.  I was surprised to hear this stretch is walked at least once every month.  He usually walks 10km a day recording the state of the infrastructure and moored boats.  His electronic data recorder creates a permanent record of his movements and times.  His vehicle is also fitted with a data recorder.  Actually two men share the vehicle. One employee started at point A and walks the 10km to point B.  The second employee drives to point B and starts walking to point C.  When employee 1 reaches the vehicle he drives to point C to collect his colleague.  

Saltersford Locks

Land access to the locks is via a SS Bailey Bridge.

The CRT employee had informed us all the swing bridges are operated once per month to check they work, however the only time they are operated for traffic was for the yachts based in the marina upstream of Northwich.  Commercial traffic ceased a number of years ago after the industry that employed the coasters was asked to contribute to the maintenance of the bridges.  They must have made a commercial decision that transporting product by land was a more cost effective option.

The locks are paired and have a third set of gates in the middle.  There are signal posts at each end of the locks, although I’m not sure whether they are still operational.

Now here’s a small puzzle.  Why are all the birds perched together on this rail rather than spreading themselves out across both locks?

From here it was a short walk up the access road to the canal towpath and then back to Waiouru.  The small boy saw his mother beside the boat and happily ran to greet her.