The June Rose: Sunday 17 July 2016

When we woke up this morning it was like someone had turned a wind machine on! I’m pleased to say that by lunchtime it was warm and sunny.

We were ready to leave by 8.30am to meet the CRT guys at “swing bridge 9”. There are two swing bridges en-route to Liverpool that the CRT have to man as they are on busy roads and there is a hospital at one end of one of them. They don’t want anybody holding the bridges open for too long but it gives them the opportunity to tell you where to stop to shop, empty loos and get rid of rubbish.

The outskirts of Liverpool are not particularly desirable and there was a fair amount of rubbish in the canal, which all the information warns about and says it hopes that it doesn’t detract from the stay once you get to Salthouse Dock. We didn’t think it seemed as bad as some of the other towns and cities that we have been through.

We encountered our first problem at the swing bridge (across the farm track) where we stayed last night – our newly bought (at the end of the summer last year) handcuff keys seem too big to open the anti-vandalism lock on the bridge. I had to make a dash back to Chris to see if we could borrow his. By the time we got to the bridge Steve had managed to open it with some long nosed pliers. Chris kindly locked the bridge up for us. I showed the CRT guy and he said the black ones were rubbish, unluckily for us we only have two black ones!

We arrived at the top of Stanley Lock flight at 12.45pm to meet the next couple of CRT guys who were going to lock us down. As we arrived we were told that there was a narrowboat that had gone aground in “Sid’s Ditch” – we have still yet to find out why it is called that – and there was also a widebeam stuck behind it so for Health & Safety reasons they would not let us down. Apparently Peel Holdings own the stretch of water from the bottom of the lock flight into the docks and as it’s a Sunday they are unable to get hold of anybody.

They said we would not be going anywhere today and that our only option was to moor at the top unless we could get permission to moor at the Titanic Hotel at the bottom of the flight. Steve got on the phone and managed to get speak to the relevant person who was really helpful and said we could moor at the hotel. Two of us went down and one boat stayed at the top as they have two dogs and were worried that there would be nowhere to walk them at the bottom.

We walked to Salthouse Dock to see where we should be moored up – it was a 15 minute walk each way so not the end of the world.

A windy but bright start to the day.

Thanks Chris - he is locking the bridge behind us.

In our convoy of three boats making our way to the docks.

Paul and Tom, our friendly CRT men.

Anyone for a brew?

The outskirts of Liverpool, most of it that we have seen from the canal is a huge council estate but here is an old terrace, probably all that was here back in the day.

A collection of rubbish pulled from the canal.

I hope he is happy here and not just a discarded pet.

Looks like it has been a while since the canal bus stopped here!

Arriving at the top of Stanley Locks.

It's now gone 4.00pm and we are making our way down the flight.

That's the Mersey through there.

I got off to help them open the locks as they were not too happy about letting us down - I don't think they thought we would get permission to moor at the hotel! He said he now has to fill in a report.