Onto the Shroppie

Croxton Flash

We overslept a bit on Sunday morning, and got moving at around 10:30, only to stop again about a mile and one lock (Middlewich Big Lock) later. There's a Tesco close to the canal, and we had a short shopping list that had grown out of what we'd forgotten in Lymm.

photo - www.tripadvisor.co.uk

The stop, brief as it was, turned out to be rather unfortunate, for we now found ourselves ascending the narrow locks behind a hire boat. A boat from Canal Club (name and shame time), who had shamefully allowed a woman with an invalid father and two children to ascend the locks without having had any useful basic tuition. The mother was clearly very stressed because she was struggling to drive the boat, her little boy of about five was out of control (her fault, not Canal Club's), the teenager hadn't a clue about operating locks, and the old man, though he claimed to have “done the whole system” seemed to know little more than anyone else in the crew.

My biggest concern was their safety. The little boy was sidling up and down the gunnels, the teenager was dancing on the roof, juggling the windlass, and the old man, overweight and breathless, looked fit to expire at any moment. None of them wanted to take any notice of my advice. It was all very sad. At best, they were not going to have a very enjoyable holiday, and at worst, one of them was going to die. I helped them all I could, gave instruction and advice, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears, and their very slow progress to Middlewich Junction caused a great deal of distress amongst other boaters. Feelings were running high.

photo - www.waterwayroutes.co.uk

The last we saw of them was as they drove into Wardle Lock, with a young man, possibly from Middlewich Boats, now at the helm. He'd heroically jumped aboard when it became quite clear that the poor woman was not going to be able to make the 90 degree turn onto the Shropshire Union Canal.

Meanwhile, we'd passed the other boats that were waiting their turn to turn off the Trent and Mersey, and pulled up outside the chandlery there – only to find they close on Sundays. Grace reversed Kantara away, and across in front of one of the waiting boats.

After a boat had entered the scene from King's Lock, there were no fewer than six boats waiting to enter the Shroppie. When two craft from Middlewich Boats came onto the scene in reverse, wanting to wind and reverse back to their base, the whole pound took on a rather chaotic character. It reminded me of this video, though not nearly so bad!

Here we stayed for some time – time enough to make and eat a light lunch – until finally our turn came and we started up the Shropshire Union Canal.

It was only then that I realised that, having not taken any photos when we went down the Middlewich Locks because it was raining, I'd not taken any this time, either, having been rather distracted by the Canal Club Boat.

Standthorne Lock; photo - canalplan.org.uk

It had taken us 4½ hours to travel the 4½ lock-hours from our overnight mooring. Standthorne Lock was slow, the two miles after that were fine. But come bridge 22, where there's a perfect visitor mooring, we'd had enough for the day, and we moored there. 

The Shroppie's looking beautiful. The spot where we moored overlooked Top Flash and the River Weaver. We sat back and enjoyed it.

Favourite boat name of the day – NB Nomad Rush. Very appropriate, don't you think?

Just four locks!

The start of the day

Not intentionally competing with Phil and Jackie on NB Achernar, who must hold the record for the shortest canal journey in one day (I believe it was ½ mile and one lock), our journey today was ½ mile and four locks.

Immediately after descending King's Lock, Grace drew Kantara up alongside the Middlewich Chandlery, where we topped up our diesel tank.

King's Lock Bridge

A soppy spaniel entertained us while we waited, with her attempts to find stones near the edge of the canal that she could knock into the water. She loves the sight of the ripples, and the “plop” of the water, her owner told us. She used to do it continuously when the ground there was very stony, but such was her enthusiasm and energy that she caused the edge of the bank to break up, and they had to have the whole length of it concreted. But still the daft creature scratches and scrapes at it, hoping to dislodge something and release it into the canal.

Tank filled, we found ourselves part of a traffic jam, with two boats coming from opposite directions, each wanting to turn the 90° into the junction of the Shropshire Union Canal (The Shroppie to many), while another was trying to turn out of it. It didn't help matters that we'd had to tie Kantara up at the chandlery with her prow sticking out into the middle of the canal, in order to bring her fuel filler close enough to the diesel pump.

Before the jam!

But they sorted themselves out eventually, leaving us the space to drift across to the other side of the canal to moor at the water point, to fill that tank, too.

And it was then that it started raining.

Circumstances dictated that I had to stand by the tap for the duration of the long fill, so my sogginess started then, too. My photography also ended then!

After filling up, we had three more locks to go down in order to moor close to the town centre where the big Tesco is. The rain got heavier with each successive lock, I swear it did, so by the time we'd moored up, we were both sodden. There's a limit to how much water a cagoule – even a fairly expensive one – can keep out. We dried ourselves, donned dry clothes, ate lunch, and watched the rain stop. We were able to do our shopping in the dry.

After which, more rain. We stayed for the night.