Saturday 16 July 2016

Lazy morning this morning and a chance to catch up with the blog!  We only have a couple of hours cruising today.  We had six swing bridges to go through.  Thankfully Steve did the one where there were a couple of cheeky lads that wanted to stand on the bridge whilst he opened it!

One man asked me if we had come from London, I said we had, to which he replied “on the run from the social are you?”…!  Another fisherman said I hope you are going to spend all your money in Liverpool because you lot are rich and we need the money up here.

I’m glad to say that where we did moor was back in the countryside so only keen dog walkers and cyclists went by.  We arrived at the same time as Chris Elaine.  It is the place to stop as all the boats coming out of Liverpool either stop here or move on to the next safe bit and all the boats (like us) going into Liverpool stop here.  We have to be at a certain swing bridge half an hour away from here at 9.30am in the morning.

We spent the afternoon on the towpath having tea with Chris and Elaine and in the evening we walked up the farm track to a pub called The Bootle Arms for dinner.  It was great to catch up with them, hopefully we will bump into them again on our travels.

Aintree Race Course in the distance.

I made Steve do this swing bridge - glad I did as two lads decided they wanted to jump on the bridge as it was opening - bless them!

Quick put the plug back in.

!

Straw bale rafting! 

We think this is a fortified farm house - the windows are small to prevent anyone being able to climb in.

Humming along...

Leaving the Bootle Arms with Elaine and Chris, fed and watered!

Red sky at night  - that's Liverpool over there.

And that's Chris and Elaine behind us.