Every weather today!

The title speaks for itself! Torrential horrendous rain much of the morning with temperatures as low as 10 degrees with breath billowing mist from our mouths. In between this was fierce squalling winds, ear shattering claps of thunder and very scary lightening and at one point even a hailstorm that left the roof of the boat white! Towards the middle of the afternoon the sun came out in patches which resulted in steam pouring off of the boat tops and us. Now moored up and although the sun is still out between the clouds, the wind is still fierce. In fact, we've been moored for some time but the phone refused to connect again due, I guess, to the amount of water that poured out of the socket at the base of the unit! It has only just dried out in the window.

You see, we had to book into the Rochdale due to water shortages as a result of the heatwave this summer. Water shortages in locks are dreadful things and cause all sorts of problems as seen in this picture I took of the lock just ahead of us!

Now I thought you might like tosee where we moored last night.

Set off this morning at around 7.45 with the BW man un padlocking all the chains in front of us as we headed through extremely rough looking areas. Truth be told, I think we had the best weather for this part of the journey as there wasn't a soul around. We were paired up with a couple from NB Tree Sparrow who turned out to be very experienced boaters and also extremely pleasant.

The time passed quickly and much amusement was had along the way despite the dreary weather and even drearier surroundings! The only interesting points were the run down old cotton mills:

....and vertical road lift bridge:

Oh! and what we constantly had to keep pulling out the weed hatch!

Our final mooring is just above the Rose of Lancaster where we plan to have a meal this evening and just before lock 63, (Walkmill Lock, Chadderton)

Tomorrow onwards it seems as if the locks spread out a little more and the countryside becomes a little more pleasant as we climb the Pennines.

It's OK anyway - father has just checked the guides and the log book twice now. We are on schedule so long as we maintain a steady 10 hours cruising per day from lock 44 to get to Standedge Tunnel!