The Ribble Link

Hi There

 

August has been a gentle month for us of 26 cruising hours after July’s 55 when our son and his girlfriend were over. Allowed us some pretty lazy days, but the weathers been pretty good and we’ve managed to find some good walks as well. Spent about ten nights spread between the Appley Locks, Parbold and then outside of Burscough that are only about five miles apart. We then gave ourselves six days to travel the final six miles from the branch at Burscough up to Tarleton where our Ribble Link experience will start.

Just need to quickly say that in the event of me mysteriously disappearing from blogging life, please forward the following evidence to the police for me. 

 

 

Taking the boys for a walk and trying, with difficulty, to get Binks to go through the gate.

 

Here's me doing my cameo appearance as Maximus Decimus Meridius from the Gladiator film.

 

 

And Nicky trying to get a picture with the boys who are otherwise interested.

 

 

Now onto our Ribble Link experience . . . . . .

 

 

Tarleton Lock and as you can see, we're not going anywhere yet as the tide hasn't come in.

 

Looking down from Tarleton Lock.

 

 

Five narrow boats doing today's trip and we're in fifth place. It's a double lock so we'll be the third lock to go that'll cost us a bit further into our journey.

 

 

And we're off and looking back at the lock. Quite a flow here as it's quite narrow for a mile.

 

 

Starting to open out a bit now and making better headway.

 

 

The narrow boat in front was in the first lock so we've made up about thirty minutes on him in the first couple of miles. The boat that's just overtaken us was in the lock behind and going fishing for the day.

 

 

The narrow boat in the right of the picture has gone round the Asland Lamp that's the marker we need to keep to the left of so we don't find ourselves dry on a sandbank. It's off to the left and out of sight in this picture that'll give you an idea of the detour that you need to make before you can head right towards Savick Brook that'll take us onto the Lancaster Canal.

 

 

 

Not very clear, but you might be able to make out the Asland Lamp in the distance almost in line with the starboard side of our boat. The sailing boat in the right of this picture is the one that is in the left of the picture above that puts the detour we need to make a bit more into context.

 

 

Just coming up on the Asland Lamp and need to remember to turn right here or we're off out to sea and heading towards America. Oops that'll be a problem as we haven't got a visa . . . .

 

 

A couple of fishing boats that have come from Preston Docks and in the distance, the two narrowboats that were in the lock before us.

 

 

Getting towards the end of the journey, the turning into Savick Brook is about a mile on the left, BUT . . .

 

 

We're not going there today as we'd received a call telling us that there won't be enough water so it's onto Preston Docks for us for an unscheduled night stop.

 

 

Waiting for the lock to open so we can get into the marina, lucky for Nicky that it's not windlass operated !

  

 

It's Nicky's lucky day, the swing bridge isn't windlass operated either. . . .

 

 

 

And here we are moored up for the night.

 

Every cloud has a silver lining and all that though. The bonus of the detour turned out to be a Morrisons Supermarket about five minutes walk away as we needed to do a shop, an Elsan point,  water point and washing machines and tumble dryers at the marina. And the bonuses didn't stop there either. We popped into a motorhome shop that was close by as we've decided to get a low voltage twin tub washing machine that we were expecting to pay about £100 for and found that they were less than £60. So that's on order and we'll be picking it up when we come back to do the return trip on the link in October.

 

 

So this is sort of the morning after the night before (but without the drink) and heading out of Preston Docks and back towards Savick Brook to finish our journey we started 24 hours ago. The boat in front is the one we'd past yesterday who spent the night with us in the dock.

 

 

And quite a nice day for it to.

 

 

Just starting our turn into Savick Brook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And coming up to the sea lock.

 

 

Where we met up with three other boats that were doing The Ribble Link today.

 

 

We thought The Ribble Link experience stopped as we'd crossed the tidal part, but as it turned out, the Savick Brook is a whole experience by itself and mostly very narrow.










 

You might just be able to make out the canal going off to the right in front before turning left again a little further ahead where you can see the narrow boat that's in front.
 

 

Waiting at the first lock, where . . . . .

 

 

a couple of clunks and a head down the weed hatch later I retrieved a chunk of wood from the propeller. All fine though and after the problems we've had with bent prop shafts and propellers falling off we were mighty relieved that this was all it was.  

 
 

And on we continue, only seven more locks to go !

 

Getting there now, the final leg, a staircase that you need to reverse into. 

 

In we go and for once the boat did what I wanted it to do, was it skill, probably not, just no wind, no flow and luck.

 

The staircase from the middle lock.

 

And then the top lock and nearly done.

 

Reversing out now and finally on the Lancaster Canal, thirty hours after leaving the Leeds and Liverpool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moored up and in need of a rest now, so this will be home for the next few days. Glad we got round to making a gangplank as we'll be needing it here as the canal is apparently very shallow at the sides.

 

And so in signing off,

 

Day 322 in the Badger Sett Narrowboat - 571 miles and 271 locks further on from when we started.

From the Bridgewater to Leeds and Liverpool Canal

Our last blog found us on the Bridgewater canal where we met up with Carol and George of the good ship Rock n Roll. We’d last met them up in Chester and Ellesmere Port when we were only about a month into our new nomadic lifestyle. They kindly invited us for a BBQ at five and it wasn’t until about midnight that we had to trudge off into the moonlight in search of out boat. Luckily it was only a boat length away and we’d headed in the right direction first time. I’m a bad blogger though, didn’t take a bloggers must have gadget with me, aka a camera, so no photo.

We also met up with some old friends from Scotland, Alan and Ann, who we hadn’t seen for about four years. No excuse about not taking my camera with me this time, no, just simply forgot to take a photo of them – DOH! Now I say OLD friends, but were all sort of from the same era, well all except Ann, she’s much older than us and comes from an earlier decade. Unfortunately our day didn’t go exactly as planned as they enjoyed our Company so much there coming back to see us in October . . .  oh well, just have to try harder next time. Promise a photo of them next time.

After doing the main Bridgewater Canal we turned onto its Leigh Branch and travelled over the Manchester Ship Canal via the Barton Swing Aqueduct that I think is the only one of its kind in the world. Here are a couple of photo’s of our trip on it although it doesn't really do it justice,

 

but if you want to see it in action then check out Rock n Rolls blog here. http://nbrocknroll.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/an-interesting-cruise-through-barton.html

After that we stopped as soon as we got past civilisation that happened to be just after a place called Worsley. It had a bit of canal history associated to it so we took a wonder around the town and read up about it on various boards. It was actually quite interesting as they tunnelled canals into the mines starting with two entrances that then extended underground for about 50 miles with locks to about four different levels. The barges they loaded with the iron ore were then moved around the underground canal system by opening and closing sluices to push them along.

Pictured below is the access to the basin on the right although the canal itself turns a sharp left out of the picture. The right hand arm, that is not navigable, takes you into the basin where the tunnels were accessed from. You’ll note the colour of the canal and this is from the dissolved iron ore that comes out of the underground tunnels having flowed though the ore that remains.

 

And one of Badger Sett giving a truer colour of the water.

 

We had a few warm days whilst we were in the area and we normally put a large fishing umbrella out for the boys so they can sleep in the shade. Don’t know why we bother though sometimes as they prefer the heat anyway and just keep moving out of the shade when we put it there for them. Anyway, the reason for this is that we lost it (the brolly that is not one of the boys) into the canal with a gust of wind and off it floated with the spike pointing skywards. It was close enough to the bank to reach with a pole though, but the problem was that it was the other bank and it would have been about a mile trek to travel about forty feet. Luckily a little lad came to the rescue with a nippy battery powered boat and crying ‘ I’ll get it for you mister ‘ which he duly did.

I signalled to Nick to give him a quid or two as thanks, but unfortunately something got lost in translation and he ended up with five quid in his little hand. Oh well, he was a nice kid anyway.

Just up from Worsley where’d we’d stopped for a couple of nights is a place called Astley where we stayed for a few more nights. They’re only about two or three miles apart so not much travelling was done which is the way we like it. We’d mainly stopped here as there was a mining museum called Astley Green Pit Museum and it was well worth the few hours we spent there. Since we’ve been on our travels we’ve been to a Salt museum (Northwich) a Silk museum (Macclesfield) and now a Coal museum. All very interesting in their own ways, although the Boys don’t come on tour with us to these so they’re left home alone.

You can just make out the pit head gear of the colliery at the end of the canal and then a close up of it.

 

They’ve got some large steam turbines on show and a set of hefty spanners named King Dick’s.

Nicky couldn't of course miss the opportunity of trying a King Dick for size so hoisted it up and held it firmly in both hands with what I can only describe as a longing look.

 

We’re making the best of the canal banks fresh raspberries and blackberries to either go into some of our breakfasts or pies that Nicky does for us. Binks helps us when we’re collecting them although not many of his make it into the bag, but find there way into his tummy instead. We leave him to these as Nicky’s not keen on doggy pee height blackberries anyway, although I always lob a few lower level juicy ones into the bag and what she don’t know don’t hurt her, does it.

 

We’ve decided to do The Ribble Link whilst we’re up this way that connects the waterway system to the Lancaster Canal. It means travelling on rivers and tidal waters so will be a bit of an experience and I’ll blog about it in a later post. We’re booked to travel up the link on 4^th September and return on 10^th October so come back and check out how we get on.

And so in signing off,

Day 302 in the Badger Sett Narrowboat - 537 miles and 251 locks further on from when we started.