I know it’s not long since the last “not a vlog” but the journey along the Shropshire Union canal was so pretty and so sunny that I couldn’t resist making up another compilation. Get a cuppa, put the video to full screen, sit back and relax to this.
Continuing down the Shropshire Union canal and going under an awful lot of bridges. I mean, a really amazing number in quick succession including one very well-known one. Plus a water refill and a bit of stickiness as I try to be a good boater.
An episode in which I spot an escaped cow, a swan hinders my progress and I send a hireboater to their doom.
This is NOT A VLOG. It’s a compilation of pretty canal scenes with no captions, text, commentary, music, annotations or anything like that. It’s deliberately like that. If you liked my previous “not a vlogs”, I hope you like this one. If you didn’t, you definitely won’t. If you think it would be better with music, then please feel free to put your favourite CD on while you watch :-)
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.
Several people suggested that as I was going all the way up to Middlewich I ought to go that little bit further north and visit the Anderton Boat Lift, an amazing engineering structure dating from 1875, which lifts boats from the Trent and Mersey canal down to the River Weaver and vice versa. So I did.
Continuing my narrowboat journey on the Trent and Mersey canal, tackling the many locks of “Heartbreak Hill” as you start heading away from Kidsgrove and out into the countryside through Rode Heath and Hassall Green.
It’s finally time for me to face me greatest canal tunnel fear and go through the (almost 3,000 yard long) Harecastle tunnel. It’s wide enough only for one boat and has partially collapsed in the middle so headroom is extremely limited and all boats are checked before they enter (and counted in and out by dedicated tunnel-keepers). Here goes!
After spending the night at the village of Barlaston, I’m ready to go through the substantial town of Stoke-on-Trent, past the CRT facilities yard at Etruria and on towards the southern portal of the infamous Harecastle tunnel.
