Vlog 100: Red Roses Too
In which I continue my return trip to Middlewich but then do a 90 degree right turn onto the Middlewich branch of the Shropshire Union canal, get some fuel and fenders from a fuelboat, go all the way along to Barbridge and turn left onto the Shroppie, and past the entrance to the Llangollen canal.
I am so, so grateful for this vlog. We are going from Lock 74 and along the Wardle Canal on Saturday 26th of June 2021. It’s six years since we boated up the Llangollen and I was not helmsman that day! Thank you for the tip about swinging the boat over before entering the Wardle.
I have watched Vlog 100 so many times. I really love it. Also thanks for the picnic spot (although not to your taste, which I understand) which we intend to moor at. No room at the Inn for Sat supper, so a cold collation and a chilled glass of white!
By the way, I am so proud of your decision re the regular vlogs. I left train driving in the mid 1970s and more recently teaching. I left both knowing it was time. I am quite excited about your proposed documentary style vlogs.
Thank you SO much for the pleasure your work has given me through the long dark months and Covid hell as I wondered if we were even going to get away on the ‘Shroppie’
Hello Graham. Thank you for this message, I really appreciate it (especially the bit about the change in format for my videos). I hope you have a splendid time on the canals in the coming days, and no mishaps on the turn onto the Wardle! Cheers
How much time does one have to leave between moorings? If you spent 48 hours on a mooring then came back after 2 days for another 48 hours stay, might you get into trouble? How would anyone know you had ever left in between?
The CRT have towpath rangers who note the boats and their stays. You can’t just go and come back (unless perhaps you’d reached a point at which you were turning around and returning though you still might have to explain this if you got a warning notice). The idea is not to stay in the same locations but to move on so that other people can moor there as well. It’s to prevent boaters hogging all the spaces in any particular part of the network.
HA – you got caught on the same ledge that I got caught on this last Sunday! I resembled very much one of John Cleese’s silly walks trying to kick the boat off the ledge and very nearly fell into the drink in the process. Plus at the next lock up we got grounded going out of the lock and had to empty the top lock into the pound to raise the water level before we could proceed.
Someone suggested that if too many boats go up these 3 locks in succession and haven’t yet gone up the locks going out of Middlewich that the general level of that part of the canal can become too low. However there did not seem to be a huge surfeit of boats above the third lock, so I suspect an alternative explanation with water having drained down the Trent & Mersey towards Anderton without being sufficiently refilled from above (whether through a leak in the lower locks or by the upper locks not providing sufficient replenishment)
In any case, the more I think about it the more marvellous canal engineering seems in its ability to keep boats floating. Between locks, water levels can’t just take care of themselves; the engineering has to be just right so that what is drained out is properly replaced. Now the reason for these side ponds you see from time to time in closely spaced locks becomes apparent!
– Karl
Those damned ledges… of course, the water ought to be constant because as soon as you’ve gone up the three, you have to let more water in either going straight on or turning right as I did, so quite where it all goes I don’t know! Clair Bird (building the blue narrowboat in the basin at the turn) says she’s always sitting on a slope due to water there being too low :-(
Oh no! I really thought we would cross paths in Wales as I’m only a week or so behind you. Ah well, next year. The last few blogs were great for me as I was in your wake and could see all the bits I was heading through in advance.
Cheers.
Ah, in reality you’re about six weeks behind me as that was filmed mid-May! There’s a certain delay due to the time taken to editing the videos. Glad the videos are being useful though :-)
David, loved your Rocky Horror reference!
Haha, good!