Wednesday 27 July 2016

I had hoped I would be feeling more rested before tackling the Wigan flight but it wasn’t to be – we did the lock out of town with Dave and Beryl then said our goodbyes and Steve and I arrived at the bottom of the 21 lock flight.  The lovely CRT volunteer at the town mooring yesterday spent half an hour writing out a list of all the hints and tips about which doors to open and not etc on the flight – it is known to be tough.

I got the door open on the first lock and there was a wooden pallet and a wheelie bin in the lock!  Steve managed to get rid of the pallet with the boat hook but couldn't budge the bin but thankfully as we were going up, once we had filled the lock, the bin stayed on the bottom!

I did the first six locks on my own then we worked out a system that once I had got all the paddles open I would go ahead and set the next lock and Steve got off the boat opened the gate then closed the paddles and gates.  As we arrived at lock 75 (half way) we meet some boats coming the other way which meant that the next couple of locks were set in our favour.  I don't know why the top few were full - it must be because the leaks on the gates are so bad either that or there was a boat a long way in front of us.  The gate on lock 75 was so hard to close, Steve had to climb out of the lock and even the two of us couldn’t close it so the two guys on the boats going down came back to help us!  We swapped places and I got on the boat and Steve did the locks for a while.

One of the pounds was very low so Steve went ahead and opened some paddles to get some water down which cost us about an hour.  Once through the next four locks we swapped places again and finally six hours 20 minutes later we arrived at the top of the flight!  I am pleased to say that the sun came out.  We made our way along for another hour to the recommended mooring spot.  It feels very high up and the views are amazing.  Seven hours to travel just under three miles!  We are exhausted!

Following Dave and Beryl to Henhurst Lock.

Here comes Steve - wish we had been moored over there where we moored last time!

 

As we make our way up the flight the feel of outskirts of town turns into countryside.

The locks are quite far apart compared to lots of flights but looking back you can see Wigan in the distance.

 

Waiting for Steve to get the gate open.

The locks are so deep that we can't tie up so we just have to bob around and just let the front of the boat go where it wants to go! 

I'm waiting in this lock until Steve has opened the next few paddles to let some water into the pound as we don't want to ground out and get stuck.  We are surprised that this flight doesn't have a lock keeper or team of volunteers to help and monitor water levels. 

I'm sticking to the middle of the pound but look how shallow it is on the sides.

We've reached the top and stopped at the facilities.

I ran back (or walked actually - we ache from head to toe!) to take a photo looking back down the flight. 

This will do nicely - that's Wigan way over there in the distance and we have a golf course on the other side.