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.
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!
