The 2015 adventure begins

Left Melbourne on a Royal Brunei flight with quick stops in Brunei and Dubai.  Arriving at Heathrow in London was amazing.  We were out of the terminal and on our way in only about 20 minutes instead of the normal 2 hours

Spent our first 3 nights with Sooz and Ten at their lovely new home which they moved into last November.  It’s just around the corner from their last place and even nearer the school which is handy.   The girls have grown so much since we saw them last September – Iris who never stops talking is now at playgroup a few days a week at the same school as Olive.  We also met Winnie – their new Groodle (a golden retriever/poodle) who is 12 months old but still a big playful pup.

Travelled by train to Leicester to pick up the boat which was at a marina near Foxton Locks.  At the weekend we went to the Crick Boat Show where it rained – as usual – but luckily not as heavily as last year.’

We then set out north, along the Leicester branch of the Grand Union Canal, stopping a few nights in Leicester because of heavy rain.  The city is still under the Richard III spell.  His body has now been reburied in Leicester Cathedral and there is a large exhibition showing how the body was found in a car part and all the tests done to prove it really was Richard IIIs body.  The rain stopped so we moved off only to moor up shortly after at a place called Thurmaston because of incredibly high winds – said to be up to 80 mph.  We really rocked that night!   It turned out to be a suburb of Leicester so we ended up catching a bus back to Leicester for lunch to celebrate Terry’s birthday.

We then made our way up to the Trent & Mersey Canal and retraced part of our first journey on the boat 4 years ago.   It was great to get back to the single locks which were made for narrowboats and much easier than the double locks (barges) around Leicester.   While moored up in Stone the TV we bought last year ‘died’ so we caught a bus (carrying the tele) to Stock on Trent – only 6 miles away we thought, but it turned out we went the ‘scenic route’ – probably about 20 miles – and visited lots of surrounding villages.   Luckily we were able to replace the tele under guarantee but it’s not easy travelling around without  a car sometimes!

Raining again so we spent the next weekend at Stoke and then went through the Harecastle Tunnel.  Not as scary as when we did it on our first trip 4 years ago.  This time we were the first boat through in the convoy as we were ‘experienced’.   The trip still took 45 minutes ion pitch blackness and we had to wear life jackets this time as someone went overboard last year and drowned.

From there we began in new territory where we haven’t been before.

We turned onto the Macclesfield Canal which is known as one of the most beautiful canals in the UK>  It’s built along the sides of the hills up quite high (over 500 ft above sea level) so there are some stunning views over the surrounding farm land.  Lots of lovely stone cottages and little villages dotted along the valleys.  

This canal was built in just 3 years as a short cut to Manchester.

We’re now at the Bugsworth Basin on the Peak Forest Canal.  This was a big industrial site with mines and kilns to provide limestone and lime for building.   Eighty canal boats a day were loaded and unloaded back in its heyday.  The BBC were filming here yesterday for the programme ‘Barging around Britain’.

The weather hasn’t improved much – absolutely freezing with daily top temps of 12 and 13C and lots of drizzle so the hills are shrouded in mist.   This area is where the industrial revolution started back in the 1700s when a fellow invented the machinery to make cotton using water from the rivers to drive the machinery.   There are huge mills along the canals but sadly most of them are either derelict or being used for other businesses or housing.

Yesterday caught a bus to nearby Whaley Bridge where ‘well dressing’ an ancient custom in this area was in full swing.   The village ladies spend a week making pictures out of flower petals which will be displayed at the festival next week. We then caught a bus to Chinley Village but everything was closed so we hopped on a train.  The ticket collector asked where we were going – we replied “where does the train go?”   So he suggested we get off at New Mills on the way to Manchester.   This was an amazing place built on the top of a hill with mills along the river gorge way down under the village.   No wonder everyone is fit here – everywhere you walk is either steeply uphill or downhill.

So……… There are lots of spring lambs and calves around, baby ducklings and swans and the purple rhododendrons (weeds here) are all over the hills looking quite beautiful – we just have to wait for Summer to appear and it will be perfect!