Sunday 21st July 2013

What an interesting morning! Walked to buy a newspaper and some food essentials and then looked around the Anderson Boat Lift exhibitions and watched some boats going up and down. The lift was originally constructed to allow barges to pass from the Weaver river to and from the canal which is 50ft higher. These carried salt, pottery, flint and coal. Initially it worked by water hydraulic power and then electric and now works by oil hydraulics. It was practically derelict when many campaigners stepped in to save this remarkable piece of industrial archeology. It was very quiet with few boats going up or down.

From the bottom you can really appreciate the size of the lift.

I thought the contrast between the size of the lift and the two brick control cabins most interesting.

We then sailed for a couple of hours passing through 2 small tunnels - one built before they learnt how to dig in a straight line before mooring to watch the golf.

I was talking to some boaters who are moored at Middlewich. They had taken a taxi to visit the boat as they didn't want to cruise this direction. One of the ladies had woken at 4am, looked out of the window and saw canal boats drifting all across the canal. Someone had undone the ropes! 

On the weather front it has been much cooler today. Probably at least 10 degrees down on Friday.  This temperature is lovely - so let's keep it like this.