Sunday 12th July

No rain today but 15 locks for Graham as I rested my back! Many of them are paired but often CRT are working on one or other of them. This was one of the 'under repair' locks and the first which we tackled today. 

Although we like cruising new areas it is good to reminisce as we pass through familiar countryside. The lady at lock 50 was still there selling home baking and items in aid of Great Ormond Street. She has been doing this for 10 years and has donated £18,000. We may see her again on the way back.

Another couple of lock pictures Graham working hard and the view behind me from the boat as the lock empties.

We reached our destination, Hassall Green, at 1pm and settled down to watch the Men's Final from Wimbledon - shame about the result!

Saturday 11th July

Continued our journey down the Macçlesfield Canal noting Bridge 75 as having a good parade of shops as long as you don't want a big Supermarket. It also would save you a long walk into Congleton - great going downhill to get there, not so good with the supplies coming back!

The view of note is that of Ramsdell Hall (c1760) Today, or at least in May 2104, it is owned by Peter Coates the chairman of Stoke City Football Club.

Opposite the Hall black and white painted railings separate the tow path from the steep drop into the field below. I imagine planting hedges would have spoilt the view from the Hall.

We moored at Kidsgrove and visited Tesco just as the rain started.

Friday 10th July

It seems as though summer may have returned. After a cool start to the day the sun came out and it was good enough for a BBQ this evening. 

We left our mooring about 8.15am and had a good cruise to the top of the Bosley flight passing on the way this mechanical swing bridge. 

A boat was just starting to go down so we waited a little while to see if one came up. No luck so we set off . Each lock had to be filled, gates opened, boat enters, gates closed, paddles lifted on the other gates, lock empties, gates opened, boat leaves. Paddles dropped and gates closed! 

Some of the paddles were just so heavy. Graham did half of them with me steering the boat. Unfortunately I strained my back with some of them but hopefully it will ease by tomorrow. It is difficult to take photos whilst steering so only one of Graham preparing a lock.

The Macçlesfield canal was one of the last to be built and was soon competing with the railways. The workers however still took a great deal of pride in their work and they often put markings on the stones even though they were going to be 'hidden' at the bottom of a lock.

We completed the flight by 1.15 and moored in a very picturesque spot with The Cloud as a backdrop.

This hill is aptly named as often the top is obscured by cloud. We settled down to watch the Men's Semi-finals and once they had finished to enjoy a BBQ in an idyllic spot. [We all had lunch here 2 years ago Jill and I always wanted to return].

Thursday 9th July

Today the weather improved a great deal although there was a cool breeze until lunchtime. A trip to the laundrette was in order this morning. At least we knew where to go having visited 2 years ago.

The Macclesfield Canal is a very pleasant canal to cruise and we left Marple at lunchtime to retrace our route to Kidsgrove. 

These two houses obviously love wooden decks. It seemed to me that one house built a deck and then the just down the street the other one thought that they would see how much more wood they could use.

Macclesfield has built some more visitor moorings which is much better than 2 years ago. There are some very interesting museums to visit in the town especially the silk museum Paradise Mill. Having more visitor moorings will be good for the town.

These buttresses show how steep the town is and the bridge of the road shows the slope of some of the roads.

Back to Bosley lock flight tomorrow. Let's hope there are more boats going  in the opposite direction to us than there were when we came up!

Wednesday 8th July

A day of rain, tennis and decisions.

It rained on and off for most of the day, the trees blowing about as if it was Autumn not July. We passed quite a few boats which had their stoves burning and we resorted to a thick blanket over the duvet. 

It was good to be able to moor up and watch the men's quarter finals from Wimbledon and the semi between Federer and Murray should be a good contest. We travelled up the Macclesfield to Marple and this is the view at the junction ( I admit that I took it in the sunshine on Thursday as I am a day behind writing this.)

What an idyllic location for a house. Graham knows the chap who used to live there. He ran a training business for boat safety.

We thought long and hard about the next stage of this holiday. After lots of measurements we decided that In The Mood is just too tall to go through the Standedge tunnel. It would be an amazing experience but we don't want to do the 45 locks to the entrance, only to be measured again by the CRT men and then turned away - and have to do 29 of those locks again. The sides of Standedge are sharp in places and knowing that we were scraping the paint off would spoil the whole experience!

We are therefore rethinking our plans and will firm up ideas in the next day or two. If you are 'booked in' to visit don't worry your trip will be going ahead - just in a different part of the country!

Tuesday 7th July

We started quite early today as we had the Bosley flight of 12 locks to work. This raises the canal 118' Two years ago we came down them with Jill and Jon's help - we could have done with it again! There was a steady stream of boats going up but very few coming down so we had to empty most locks. I did all the locks as it was quite windy with a few very heavy showers and I don't like steering the boat when it is caught by the wind.

Don't think that we shall be speeding past this bull.

The old Hovis bread factory at Macclesfield looks well cared for now that it is apartments.

The Macclesfield canal is famous for its 'snake' bridges where horses could move across the canal when the towpath changed sides without being unhitched.

Tonight we are moored on the aqueduct in Bollington. We are beside another restored mill. This one is now offices.

We are considering the next stage of our trip. We are not sure that our boat is low enough to be accepted to travel through the Standedge tunnel. It would be an amazing trip but most boats suffer some damage and we are not sure how we feel about this. We can take a couple of days before we make a final decision about tackling the locks before the tunnel entrance. 

Monday 6th July

OWe left the mooring at 8am and rescued a boat which had grounded. Very easy to do if you lose concentration for a minute and the boat veers off in the wrong direction. We entered Harecastle tunnel at 9am. This time we were the first boat in a convoy of 4. The tunnel is about 1and a half miles long and we were advised to keep a steady speed and not to go too slowly to avoid hitting the walls. At least it is a straight tunnel. There are fans to support the air flow but being the first boat we didn't hear the gates clang shut behind us. 

At the Southern Portal the setting is lovely.

During the journey.

Emerging from the other end where the water has turned orange due to seepage through the ironstone rock.

It took 35mins to pass through and shortly afterwards the rain started. It continued unabated and we finally moored for lunch at Congleton where they are obviously competing with Milton Keynes for concrete animal of the year.

We watched some tennis and then when the rain stopped we continued for an hour or so until it started to rain again.