Farewell Liverpool. It's been good to know you!

The alarm went off at 6:30 on Saturday morning. The sky was a bright blue, and the air was already warm. At 7:45, two other narrowboats hurried out of Salthouse as we reversed out of our birth. NB Gerty was just casting off as we went under the bridge into Albert Dock.

It was clear as soon as we approached Mann Island Lock that our ascent wasn't going to be as quick as our way down had been last week. The two boats ahead of us were waiting for the CRT staff to empty the lock and open the gates to let them in. We were waiting in the middle of the lock, with Gerty behind us and NB T'uther Woman behind them. Waiting was going to be the order of the day.

Waiting at Mann Lock

The Bar Boat behind us as we waited

Coming out of the lock

We waved to the crew of Maximus Brutus as we entered the tunnel beyond the lock. They'll be doing this tomorrow. On we went, through the docks to the The Stanley Dock and the four locks up.

And so it was through the rest of the six locks up to the canal, waiting for the pair of boats ahead to leave the top of the lock, then emptying it, letting Gerty and Kantara in, and re-filling the lock. And the single boat behind us was waiting for us, too. There were only two CRT staff on duty, since all the others had gone on their holidays, so Wendy, from NB Gerty, and I assisted them on the Stanley flight.

Up, and out of the link, turning left onto the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, we soon caught up with the two boats ahead of us. Tied side by side, going very slowly, one of them listing badly to starboard and very low in the water, they hogged the width of the canal and didn't seem to realize that the rest of us would very much have liked to pass them. After a while, they decided to separate, but now they both steered such erratic courses, still apparently oblivious to the three boats behind them, that overtaking was out of the question. They did speed up bit, though.

This stretch of the canal has masses of water lilies growing along the canal on both sides. These, and the rubbish that gets thrown in by the locals, are a constant hazard to boats, threatening to get entangled with their propellers. Robert had to pull Gerty over within about twenty minutes of being on the canal, to remove a lot of plastic bags from her prop. When we got to Litherland, I had to do the same for Kantara.

Lovely old pub in Litherland, in a sad, poor condition

We disposed of our waste at Litherland while the rest of the convoy passed through the swing-bridge and continued their journey. I went to the CRT office there, to ask want the latest news was regarding the Plank Lane swing bridge. We'd had an email from CRT telling us that the bridge had developed a fault, and would be closed to boats until a new component had been fitted. Having to wait for this would set us back possibly several days on our way to Pelsall. The man at the office updated us. The bridge would be manned every day from Sunday until it was fixed. But it would only be manned for an hour or so from 2:00pm each day. We're due to be there on Wednesday, and there's a possibility it'll be back to normal by then.

Leaving Litherland, it wasn't long before we caught up with the rest of the convoy, still dragging along behind the dying boat, whose skipper, possibly very drunk, still wouldn't let anyone past.

It was mid-afternoon when we stopped at Melling, at the spot where we'd moored on our way in to Liverpool. The weather was beautiful, though rather hot and sticky. I took up the weed hatch, and removed yet another bundle of weed and rope from the prop.

We settled down to spend the rest of the afternoon being lazy.

Oh, I've cured the horrible vibration!  One of the several pads of fabric I used around the engine, in my attempt to stop the noise, worked! No more horrible vibration!

LIverpool Monday

Our very first experiences of Liverpool were ones of necessity, on Sunday afternoon and evening. A visit to the Information Centre at the end of Albert Dock was deemed essential, and we came away with a wad of leaflets, pamphlets and booklets. Already, our brainlets were spinning. There seems to be so much to choose from.

Grace had ordered a food processor online from the Argos branch here, so we ventured into Liverpool One to collect it.

"Liverpool ONE is a shopping, residential and leisure complex in Liverpool, England. The project, previously known as The Paradise Project, involved the redevelopment of 42 acres of underutilised land in Liverpool city centre." (Wikipedia)

It was hard to find. Signage was confusing. And we got lost on the way out! Or rather, we found our way out fine, but it involved us in a much longer walk than necessary! Knackered, we went the length of Albert Dock three times, looking for a restaurant that appealed to us. Finally, we fell into the door of one that turned out to be bar where everyone else was getting smashed on expensive cocktails. The food was very good, however, and we left happy, our appetites satisfied.

Monday morning was time to start exploring and sightseeing in earnest. The old warehouses around all four sides of Albert Dock are now nearly all shops and eateries. We had planned to start off at the Tate Gallery, which is there, too. But this meant walking past all of the shops - and THAT meant going into several of them as well. But it also meant wandering alongside the docks.

Of particular interest among the shops was Ziferblat, a... well, I'm not sure what to call it. You decide.

They call it a pay-per-minute coffee house, but it's much more than that.

You go in, and register at a reception desk. They simply take your name, make sure you understand what the rules are, and tell you the time they've logged as the start of your stay there. The rules are simple. Treat the place and the other people there with respect. Make yourself at home. Clear up after you. Wash up as needed.

The room you enter after that is large, comfortably furnished, pleasantly but not brightly lit, altogether relaxing. There's food set out on a unit which separates the lounge area from a kitchen; fruit, cakes, pastries and biscuits, and several breakfast cereals. There are fruit juices, milk, fresh coffee and several teas. You're welcome to take your own food in instead - or as well! The kitchen has a microwave oven, kettles, a dishwasher and large fridge.

And you simply help yourself to whatever you want, sit down, and enjoy it. Books, papers and magazines are available, toys for children, jigsaw puzzles. They provide very good wi-fi, and two men were sitting at tables working with much concentration at their laptops. The atmosphere was quiet and informal. We loved it. We were only there for 28 minutes, at 8p each per minute. So we paid £4.48, for which Grace had had a mug of tea, and I'd had two excellent coffees. We'd both had pieces of cake, too. We left refreshed. It's a lovely place.

The Tate Gallery was much as we'd expected it to be, but hoped it wouldn't. Largely disappointing, as is the London Tate Modern. But we were hugely entertained by the lively discussion we had with a lovely young lady who was on duty in the last exhibition we visited. On the way around, we noticed the occasional scattering of rubbish - such as one might empty out of a pocket or handbag. They became more numerous, and larger, and we started to have a bad feeling about it. I went over to the lady standing at the entrance.

"Tell us about the rubbish!"

And she did. And it was, as we had feared, a piece of "installation art". And we talked with her for half an hour or so. She was brilliant. She happily confessed her own doubts about the value of such things as art, her ambivalence about them, and she understood something of what was in the mind of the artist. She told us how she felt when, as an art student herself, her final assessed creation had taken her a considerable amount of time, effort and skill, but the piece which had received the greatest acclaim had been a pane of glass. Just that. We debated, we agreed and disagreed, and we laughed a lot, and Grace and I left that gallery uplifted by that alone.

The Maritime Museum was next, with particularly interesting exhibits about RMS Lusitania, whose home port was Liverpool, and RMS Titanic, which had many strong connections with the city. Both ships sank tragically.

The Museum of Slavery kept us for about 15 minutes. We were becoming a little jaded, perhaps.

We share Salthouse Dock with large Pedal Swans!

But it had been a really good day.

>>>===<<<

It had occurred to me as I lay in bed that morning... we spent five very enjoyable weeks bringing our home the 210 miles from Yelvertoft, and now we're here, in our home, in the heart of this vibrant, exciting city for seven days, at no cost - even the electricity is free. What a privilege this is!

Into Liverpool Docks

After three nights at Litherland, Sunday at 11:30 saw us leaving on the last, short stretch to Stanley Locks. It's odd that boaters on their way to Liverpool aren't actively encouraged to moor at Litherland. Instead, it's implied that the place to moor for the night before descent is at Bridge 10. We're very glad that things turned out differently for us, and that all that remained now was a four-mile saunter.

OK, so the scenery's not THAT great...

but we saw far worse on the way into London.

And though there's some rubbish on the water...

the housing and gardens are pleasant.

Some of the graffiti is by decent artists - children in this case,

and an older artist here, I should imagine.

The water is remarkably clear.

They measured to THAT degree of accuracy?

Like many, the canal's not without its derelict factory buildings

We arrived at Stanley Top Lock half an hour early, and the only other boat going down that day was running a bit late, but this gave us time to wander around the site. It was a lovely day, and we were in no hurry.

As soon as NB Brutus Maximus joined us, the two CRT staff took us right through the journey to Salthouse Dock, dealing with all of the locks for us, and finally meeting us at our berths in Salthouse.

Down the four Stanley Locks...

into Stanley Dock

That's Brutus Maximus in front of us

Collingwood Dock...

then into Salisbury Dock, and turn left...

into Trafalgar Dock Passage

and the Central Docks Channel through West Waterloo Dock, Prince's Half Tide Dock
and Prince's Dock

Prince's Dock Lock

Can you believe that chairoplane?? You should have heard the screams!

Buildings here are old, huge and beautiful

Now some tunnels - nothing
compared with Braunston!

Mann Island Lock

Huge, modern architecture now dominates the scene

and finally into the South Docks...

where new meets old...

and some of the boats are ancient

Avoid that lock - it leads onto the Mersey!

Albert Dock

and we berth in Salthouse Dock.

The two CRT men met us here, answered our questions, told us what was where, places we might want to visit, and made us very welcome. The trip down had taken us one and a half hours, and it had been fascinating!