Climbing up the Marple flight

repaired aqueduct side and railway viaduct

Although rain had been predicted for today we cast off under cloudless blue skies. Then had to wait...a work boat was blocking the Marple aqueduct. The men were using it as a base from which to repair the concrete along one side of the channel. The Captain took Lottie for a wander and a work man came over, explained what they were doing and said, “it should take twenty minutes.”

looking down to the river Goyt from the aqueduct

The Captain agreed to wait at the far end of the aqueduct and I made coffee. Before we could drink it the workmen had moved their boat for us. Obviously politeness and patience pays.

As we entered the third lock we caught sight of the boat we had moored with entering the bottom one. The locks were still heavy but it was easier to work them uphill as the lock slave could go ahead to set the next lock while the steerer opened the lock gate to get out and lower the paddles. True there was a lot of walking backwards and forwards between locks as the lock slave had to close up but it was not as bad as on the way down.

looking back towards Manchester

Halfway up I caught up with a single hander who had been moored at the base of the flight. He told me he had set out at 7.00.- It is a lot slower on your own and more tiring. However I only caught up with him because that lock had a broken paddle so took twice as long to fill.

The Peak District

While we were working the lock a local teacher came up with a group of boys from a nearby school. The boys were well behaved, polite and asked sensible questions about the boat and canal.

As we approached the top of the flight clouds started building but they were white and fluffy not rain bearing. The boater ahead of us walked back to meet us when we were in the penultimate lock.

No rain - yet

“There’s a work boat blocking the canal,” he complained. “Last time that happened I had to wait for hours.” The Captain explained that we had already had that situation that morning and how quickly the workers had moved.

By the time we had entered the last lock he had gone so the blockage was short lived. We have always found the CRT staff helpful and friendly. It can’t be easy trying to mend things when boaters keep coming along and interrupting the work. We went through the bridge onto the Macclesfield and moored for a much needed lunch break.

old factory loading bay

An hour later we were off as the Captain decided to have a pump out even though the holding tank was not full in case we got caught by rain as the next facility available at the weekend was in Stone. When we cast off with an empty tank the sky had clouded over and it had grown colder. The air felt damp but we were glad to have done our locking for the day.



old snake bridge

By the time we moored it was sunny again so what happened to the predicted rain. I’m not complaining – the forecast is sometimes wrong but the barometer had pointed to rain too and it had never been wrong before. There were more boats moving on the Macclesfield canal but maybe that was because the closure on the Peak Forest Canal had just finished. It rained briefly while we were moored up. I hope we don’t get today’s predicted downpour tomorrow.