Musings and more

The Leeds and Liverpool is a strange canal, it has to be said. At least, the Liverpool arm that we're on. From the Leeds junction at Wigan to the Rufford Arm is 10 miles. I believe that the Rufford Arm is fairly quiet. It leads north to the Ribble Link, a crossing over the estuary of the River Ribble to the bottom of the Lancaster Canal, a trip that many might consider a little too “adventurous”. (The jury is out on this on board Kantara.)

From the Rufford junction to Liverpool is 24 another miles. Anyone on this stretch is either on their way in to Liverpool or on their way out. Or possibly going to or from the Scarisbrick Marina. Because of these factors, very few boats travel these 34 miles. We've travelled for hours most days without seeing single boat on the move. It's like the canal version of a ghost town.

And it feels a very neglected canal, too. Far too many locks are faulty one way or another. “CRT aware – 2014” notices are too common. Services are few and far between, and several of those leave much to be desired. If the battle against Himalayan Balsam has ever been engaged here, it has most certainly been lost.

Large masses of this plant - Mash Marigold? - float across
the canal in places, obstructing the passage of boats

It's a great shame. The problem is, of course, that CRT simply have too many problems to deal with around the system, and too little money and staff to solve them with. There's only so much they can do at a time, and prioritizing must be a nightmare.

The greater shame is the whingers who bang on and on about some issue on “their” part of the system, apparently not realizing that theirs is not the only issue that CRT would love to be able to put right immediately, but simply don't have the resources to do so. Thank God for the thousands of CRT staff and volunteers who put in so many hours between them, working to put things right. I don't envy CRT their job.

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We left Hoscar at around noon on Tuesday, having bought lots of food and some very good, inexpensive wine, from Taylor's Farm Shop. It was silly windy again, giving Grace particular problems with controlling the boat. Particularly when, having pulled over to the towing-path to let me get off to deal with a swing-bridge (of which there were several that day), it was hard to pull away again against the wind, and get the right angle of approach to the open bridge. The same kind of problem had to be faced again the other side of said bridge when she had to side up for me to get back on. The wind blew strongly from the towing-path for most of the day.

We have no idea what this structure is - a Viking house??

Ancient, sail-less windmill in Parbold 

Any idea what this signifies?

At one swing-bridge where I had to close the road barriers manually before the bridge would open under motor power, I closed one barrier, and turned to find that a car had driven onto the bridge against the traffic lights from the other side where the barrier was still up.

“Let me over, I'm in a hurry!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Put the barrier up, I need to get across!”

I had it in mind to leave him where he was, close the barrier behind him and swing the bridge open with him on it. But that would probably have been in contravention of the law, and I couldn't be sure that the bridge would open with his weight on it, anyway.

“You're in a hurry? I'm sorry, I don't know what hurry is.”

I walked slowly to the offending barrier, and opened it without hurry, smiling at the driver as he speeded off.

“You're very welcome!”, I said to his speechless departure.

We lunched after Appley Locks, and moored for the night at Crooke, on the first bit of Armco we'd seen for ages!

If you understand irony, Wigan's wonderful!

Scotman's Flash

We started off today up Poolstock Locks. Again, the gates have no gangplanks for crossing the chamber, so a footbridge at one end has to suffice. The unusual thing about this lock is that the bottom gates, being very heavy, are closed by means of a chain attached to the end of each balance beam, wound up by a winch. Useful.

We were delayed here by a dog named Keith. He fell off a boat coming down the locks. NB Jemine (a former colleague of mine's way of saying “Do you know what I mean?”). There was nowhere for the poor Labrador to climb out, the canal being bordered all the way along for some miles by a high, stone bank. Desperately trying to scrabble his way out, Keith was getting more and more tired by the minute. He started going under. The woman on board was clearly very anxious. The rather-more-laid-back man, having failed to get Keith to swim across to the other side, where it would have been easier to get him out, strolled over to where the dog was, and hauled the soggy doggie out by the collar. Keith survived, and rolled energetically on the ground in celebration.

The next lock provided no such excitement. The bottom gates were just as heavy as those of the first lock, but had no winched chains. This was a tough-it-out-yourself job. Not clever.

Coming to the junction with the Leeds Line of the canal, we turned left towards Liverpool, stopping almost straight away where there are full services. Except there weren't. There was a fairly obscure Elsan point, of which we were glad. Rubbish disposal and water, forget it.

The next lock was here. Someone had written in a very neat hand on one of the gate beams, “Missing, bridge gangplanks. Reward for finding them, easy access to the locks.” Their irony was not misplaced. Yet again, neither set of gates had gangplanks for people to walk across. Neither was there the customary footbridge at one or other end. At this lock, you had to cross via the busy road bridge. This entailed walking up two ramps onto the bridge, crossing the canal, and walking down another two ramps. But this isn't so much to do with how much walking is involved, it's about single-handed boaters having to leave their boats unattended whilst moving from side to side of the lock as they work the gates. It's not easy for them in the first place. This makes it really difficult.

From the road bridge

The bottom gates here had of necessity very short beams which would have been useless for opening and closing the gates. So this was done by means of a handle that operated gears that pushed and pulled a rack (a bit like a car's steering rack) attached to the stubby beams. Simple and effective.

We needed water. We needed to get rid of a very smelly rubbish bag, now days old. The map showed us that there was a British Waterways office just a tad further on, with full services. There was an office, long since deserted and weed-covered. CRT didn't want it, presumably, when they took over from BW, so I couldn't go and ask them where the “full services” were, because they certainly weren't there. A nearby CRT Dry Dock was closed, because of a “fire incident”. (Someone had set light to it.) There was a wall-mounted cabinet by the office-that-wasn't, inside which was a brand-new brass tap. I'd never seen one so spick and span outside of Wickes. Relieved to be able to fill our tank, I attached the nozzle and the hose, Grace manned the other end on the well-deck, and I turned on.

No water. Not a drop.

In a bit of a strop now, we carried on into the Wigan Pier area. It was dismal. All of the attractions that had been created there decades ago – museums, theatres, shops, pubs and restaurants – have now been closed because of insufficient custom, and it all stands empty and shoddy, like most of Wigan's ancient mills and factories. It's all very sad.

"And I came all this way - for THIS!!"

We moved on to Pagefield Lock, where we knew there to be a Co-Op nearby. We had a quick lunch there, too. The Wigan rugby league team's stadium glared at us across a swathe of waste land.

We moored at Crooke, and lovely spot immediately after Crooke Bridge 48, where the canal widened as it flowed on. Pinning was hard. The ground was very stony, and it took ages to do the job properly. But we did it.

And then saw on the map that we'd moored in a winding hole! Feeling silly, we moved up 50 yards and joined the end of a line of several more boats. It wasn't a bad spot, either.