Thursday May 24th, Salthouse Dock, Liverpool - Melling

Well; we’re on the move again. It has been a lovely stay of 13 nights in Salthouse Dock, but in a way I suppose we were glad to be moving again.

Despite a 3-day trip to Hereford soon after we arrived as a result of the sad death of my beloved Auntie May, we have managed to get to do most of what we had planned.

The new Museum of Liverpool (now open) from the new Link

We visited the new Museum of Liverpool, the Walker Art Gallery (with a Rolf Harris exhibition) and the awesome and majestic Anglican Cathedral. There, we climbed (part of the way by electric lift) to the top of the tower where, with the sun shining, there were stunning views in every direction.

View from Cathedral Tower

Liverpool Cathedral

Imperial War Museum, Salford Quays

We also had an all-day cruise on the Mersey Ferry ‘Snowdrop’ up the estuary to Eastham where we entered the Manchester Ship Canal and journeyed past Ellesmere Port & Runcorn all the way to Salford Quays. There we had a couple of hours to explore the stunning new buildings that have been and are being erected all around the old Manchester Docks, before being transported back by bus.

Certainly, one of the highlights for us was a visit to the Empire Theatre to see “Dancing In The Streets”. Those of you who know your Tamla Motown will recognise the title as a hit for Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, and the musical showcases the many hits of Tamla Motown in a non-stop singing and dancing extravaganza. It was wonderful.

We’ve also eaten well, especially the first night (at Gusto in Albert Dock) and the last night (at a wonderful tapas restaurant named appropriately Tapas Tapas).

Waiting for Mann Island Lock

Also, over the last few days we have been glad to see a bit of summer with some lovely hot, sunny days, the conditions when we manoeuvred out of our berth today were significantly better than when we came in!

There were five boats leaving today, and we all had a wait of half an hour or so in Canning Dock waiting for the British Waterways gang to arrive. Once they did, we were soon through the two locks and heading through the southern and central docks to Stanley Locks. Isn’t it wonderful how much better everywhere looks with the sun shining. It was a really lovely cruise.

Bascule Bridge, Stanley Dock

The passage up the locks was slow – there were only two BW guys and no-one of the two boats in front seemed to helping, whilst the boat we shared with (one of two Claymore hire boats) had 8 chaps on it – we had plenty of help!

Nevertheless we eventually reached the canal’s main line and set off back towards Bootle, Litherland and Aintree.

With the fine weather, the towpath was much in use by the local community and once again everyone was delighted to see boats on the canal. However, there did seem to be a lot more rubbish in the canal, and our progress got slower and slower and by the time we got to Litherland we needed to pull in and have a weed hatch experience. One full bin bag later, we were on the move again. We had collected a length of slim plastic conduiting, some of that horrible plastic strap stuff that they secure parcels with and a whole host of plastic bags.

Under way again we were playing catch up as the rest had gone on. By the time we got to Bridge 6, they had already gone through but the BW guys were waiting for us and we were soon through. The final length through the outskirts of Aintree was soon completed, despite the nagging feeling that there was something else clogging the prop.

The other boats had just gone through Bridge 9 which the BW guys had to close again to release the traffic that had built up, but after about 5 minutes we were through, waving farewell to the guys in blue who do so much to make the trip for boaters into and out of the docks so memorable. Thanks guys!

Mooring at Melling

We were now only a few minutes away from our mooring just through Bridge 10 which this time caused no problems at all. After over 6 hours on the go we were finally glad to get moored up! Mind you, there was still another trip down the weed hatch to disgorge another half full bin bag of gunk!