Hot, hot, hot!!

What a scorcher today! Temperatures soared and I burnt! A stiff breeze up the River kept us relatively cool and at one point my cap blew off and much revving hard of the engine enabled a fish-out with the boat hook just before it sank. This morning, we set off leisurely towards the coastal limit of navigation. The last mile or so flanked by the very impressive and imposing ICI Calcium Chloride factory to the starboard side and the turbulent and equally impressive Manchester Ship Canal on the port side.

Here, the Manchester Ship Canal leads out to the sea.

Lying alongside the disused dockyard with the ICI factory behind me.

Well worth the time travelling to the end - it was quite an experience mooring up to a huge bollard designed originally for ocean going container ships and photographing Khayamanzi from the dock yard amongst cranes and derriks.

The return journey was typically 'Weaver'. An eclectic mix of beautiful and remote landscape interspersed with factories and wharfside notices warning of the import of rabies to the UK, (Simba hid below!)

Passage through the huge ship locks was simple enough although a phone call on the approach to each was necessary to warn the lock keeper of our approximate arrival time. We did find that some locks were not immediately obvious as to where and how they wanted us and they did tend to assume we were locals and knew the system a little too much at times, leaving us holding the boat, back mid channel, in a gusting wind guessing if they wanted us to enter, which lock they wanted us to enter and where they wanted us to land!

We approached Vale Royal lock with the intention of mooring at some well known and beautiful moorings just above us. The lock keeper informed us that there would be no room above and the best bet was to saty moored on the waiting area for the night and wait for the 9.00 passage through tomorrow morning. We dutifully thanked him for his advice and then watched him pack up and go home, 30mins. before the advertised time of last lock passage. We decided to walk Simba up to the moorings and see if he was correct. Although there were 3 boats on the moorings, there was easily enough space for us and we couldn't help thinking that he simply wanted to get home early!

Tomorrow, we plan to cruise to Winsford and turn at the limit of navigation this end before returning to Northwich for some shopping. Apparently Winsford is NOT a good or safe place to moor and leave the boat!