Bridgewater two

Tardis two on the weaver before joining the Bridgewater.

Despite the weather forecast of sunshine it was raining when we woke this morning, diminishing the beauty of the surroundings somewhat. We'll sit it out and await improvements, although it is not cold, fortunately. Nothing worse than cold rain, apart from hailstones I suppose.

However, the day brightened up and we made considerable progress along the Bridgewater canal, the highlight of which is Lymm, a truly beautiful village with cobbled streets and cute shops. The whole canal is very wide and scenic with lots of mooring places and not much traffic. Certainly one of my highly recommended canals.

Bridgewater

A warm and sunny "cruising" day. We spent the night moored on the spot where Sadie disappeared several days ago and walked around the adjacent nature park, evening and morning, looking for her, with no luck. Lots of people are looking out for her,all have my mobile number 

We could give guided tours of the nature park having spent lots of time there. It comes highly recommended. We filled with water and left for Manchester via the remainder of the Trent and Mersey, then the Bridgewater canal, involving 3 tunnels , none of which were straight. They were the first ever dug and digging them straight had yet to be perfected. The big plus points were that they were all "tall", none leaked and generally they were in good condition .  

The Bridgewater goes through some stunning scenery. We are moored in the midst of this scenery near Lymm

Which reminds me I've omitted to keep you up to date with how the captive bred gorilla family transferred from Port lympne to The wild in Africa is managing. djala and his family are doing very well, even though their island was accidentally invaded by another wild silverback gorilla following a storm and a fallen tree connecting the island with the mainland, which could have proved very dangerous for the youngsters. Remarkably, after a lot of screaming, banging and commotion Djala fought-off the wild interloper. Calm and Djala's dominance was quickly restored.  

You can keep up to date with the gorilla breeding and return to the wild programme via the  Howletts and Port Lympne web site. ( Aspinal foundation).

Weaver

The Weaver countryside is truly stunning, the river extremely wide and easy to navigate with manned locks. Mooring unfortunately is a problem as the river edges are shallow and suitable places are unmarked on the map or on riverbanks. There is an element of good fortune if you find mooring and your presence attracts others very quickly. Luckily very few craft appear to be on the river at any given time so overcrowded moorings are a rarity. Phoebe was unimpressed with our very quiet mooring spot, mainly due to the herd of cows and their inevitable droppings, both proving difficult for her to avoid. She has already assumed a "queen of the boat" attitude which lightens the inevitable gloom occasionally, but given past Sadie history we retain positive attitudes.

The weather changed from sunny/warm to windy/cold so we opted to seek shelter back on the canals and moored on the lift holding bays for the upward journey. On the weaver we have seen kingfishers, cormorants and lots of herons, plus evidence of water voles, but no actual voles. One of these days?

An old friend of mine from New Zealand has made contact and is currently in Chester, which is not on our want-list this year, so we have made tentative arrangements to meet at my son's house in Manchester, which is on the Bridgewater canal and one of our intended visiting spots anyway. We stayed overnight at the spot Sadie disappeared and checked with the locals before doing our rounds of the area calling and searching, but all results negative.

A short history of the Anderton lift;  opened in 1875 and designed by Edward Leader Williams , it is of iron construction and originally hydraulically powered by steam, later by electricity and then by water when it recommenced non-commercial use in 2002.

And then there was one,again

So now I can reveal one more reason for not making the Anderton lift yesterday. I kept it quiet to prevent it going global (as they say ) before members of my family were told personally .  Sadie, for the third time in 3 years has done a runner. Last year she went missing for four weeks near Wolverhampton, the year before it was two days in Stensen Marina. Each time we have retrieved her via extensive and time consuming searches or via her digital chip. This time she showed extreme cunning and a real element of surprise and adventure.we approached Anderton services for water and to empty cassettes, but had to double moor as all the places were in use, which required Lynne to get to our bow filler cap via the front escape hatch. We finished our tasks before the boat we moored against and set out for the boat lift a short way down the canal, only for a panicky Lynne to rush through the boat shouting "we've lost Sadie", which we apparently had. Our only theory is that somehow she got onto the front of our boat and across our neighbours without being spotted, thereafter disappearing into thin air. Several hours of searching and calling followed without success. By the time we collapsed into bed exhausted the whole marina and moorers on the cut knew of our plight and relevant phone numbers.    

From the last few years experience we are confident she will be found and we will be reunited, but just for good measure we moored the boat overnight closest to where she vanished and cruised back along the canal this morning together with more calling ( which she has always ignored if it suited her ), before queuing for the lift and a cruise down the Weaver Navigation (river), again in brilliant sunshine . Tonight we are moored on the edge of a cow-pat filled field. The weaver is extremely wide with great scenery, but lacks the intimacy of canals , so we will probably go back up the lift tomorrow.

Mixed bag

More of the same weather wise , sun and showers, plus the need to top up with water and empty the cassettes, which all hampered our progress to the Anderton lift for which we are now in pole position for the morning. We had the opportunity of looking round two nature  parks in the meantime, both excellent. My biggest struggle of the day was keeping my blood sugar levels about right, for some unfathomable reason, but all worked out ok in the end.

I'm excited about the lift adventure and will attempt to describe it to the best of my ability plus a photo or two in due course.

Middlewich rain, shopping and cats

Still raining so we opted to go shopping as both Morrisons and Lidl are both nearby. Thanks to directions from the waitress last night we avoided getting too wet but decided on a taxi back. The original one booked suddenly became "too busy" for an hour or so but the back-up arrived within minutes and help load the mountain of shopping bags and the inevitable whiskey bottle into the cab and delivered us as close to the boat as possible. In fact the boat had been pulled free of the pins but re secured by some unknown kindly soul. Lynne had forgotten tea bags, amazingly, and volunteered to return to the shops after assisting me ensure the pins/ropes were as secure as we could make them. I remained aboard keeping an eye on things as a hire boat zoomed by, I guess because of the heavy rain and the grand-Prix style broad corner on the Trent and Mersey, but the pins remained secure.

Having given a glowing cat reference very recently they both decided to blot their copy-books yesterday by making a joint escape bid in very heavy rain, necessitating a search and rescue operation, which pleased us no-end. All four of us resembled drowned rats when we were eventually back on board.  I can't blame them as they had been confined to quarters all day and have got used to daily exciting forays into unsuspecting mouse territories, but unfortunately not permitted in torrential rain.

Talking of torrential rain, it gave way to brilliant, hot sunshine soon after lunch so we set off for the Anderton lift, mooring within easy reach but out of sight, just in time for a thunder storm to settle in, with very heavy rain. A neighbour boat owner helped us to bash in our pins and moor, lessening the risk of us disappearing downstream during the night. He recommended longer pins and where to get them within the vicinity, which we intend to do.

I've said before how much I like the north end of the Trent and Mersey. Today re confirmed this. The countryside here is stunning whilst the canal continually changes in width, mostly very wide, making cruising easy and enjoyable. Apart from the rain and scarcity of mooring ( other than with pins) I can thoroughly recommend it.

T&M Big lock burger

A rainy day which we used to fill up with diesel,water, calor gas.........and us.  We moored in pouring rain just after the big lock and pub of the same name . The big lock is the first double one faced by Tardis Two and  we learned to only open one gate at a time, thus saving time and energy. Pleased with our fresh skills we popped into the Big Lock pub for dinner. The dinners are mega-sized and absolutely delicious. I had the big lock burger, which beat me by a mile, so no sweet and a bloated struggle to get back to the boat followed. Considering we had a quiet day we were both extremely knackered and collapsed into bed relatively early. I am well aware my fitness and strength still fall short of ideal, but I'm getting there, and fast.

The Trent and Mersey at this point assumes the might of the Amazon, wide and daunting but with less exotic wildlife.  This part of the canal will be the furthest north we have ventured on it, so should prove interesting.