Rochdale 9 – the stories were all wrong

Thursday 4^th April 2013

1 mile, 9 locks for today

Totals: 1496 Miles, 1241 Locks, 50 Tunnels, 25 Lift Bridges, 98 Swing Bridges

Today really was a cause for concern for all of us – the unsubstantiated information about problems along the Rochdale 9 – locks and locals.

A few of us went off to breakfast at local caf. and then to move off – we first helped Peter and Meagan through the two top locks of the flight and then Dot and Gordon through the first two of the Rochdale locks going up the Rochdale canal and into the new marina there – it was a bit windswept with the strong breeze that was about.

Then the four of us wandered back to the remaining two boats to tackle the 9 locks down to Castlefields.

You cannot keep good people down and D&G were there to get us through the first two locks – we are going miss you both so very much, so you should also know that it won’t be too long before we pay you a visit wherever you may be.

The locks lived up to everything that was said – hard, unusual, unique – but in a strange way very enjoyable – especially when they were finished – the last (Dukes 92) taking an eternity to fill so that we could even let the boats into the lock.

These pictures show the journey through the centre of Manchester

cheerful now, but those locks were pretty hard work

finally Duke's 92 - the last one

but it did take a long while to fill the lock to get in

P&M were at the bottom when we got there having just filled with water and in the process of mooring up; E&P headed around to the left to moor just on from the pubs and we went right for water – an hour to fill the tanks – less showers I say to speed up the filling. We eventually, after some ummming and aaahing moored up not far behind E&P.

A bit of a chance to have a look at the heater which had decided not to work that morning – and with all of my coaxing was adamant that it would stay that way – some very valuable help from Paul gave some valuable information but no working heater – thanks Paul.

Our plan is that with the weather becoming summer-like (we wish) that we would work some magic with the 240v electric heating whilst cruising and charging batteries until we get to Liverpool where the electricity points would do their tricks.