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| Lock 7W & Mottram Road Bridge |
This morning was grey, misty and damp, after a day and a half when we actually saw a strange yellowy thing in the sky. We were soon through lock 7W and on the longest pound of the day of about ¾ of a mile.
This long pound is a bit of a strange animal. It is heavily wooded on the towpath side, but the off side has the river and railway in quite close attention and has attracted a sort of ribbon development of factories and old mills. One of the old mills is still in use as a paper mill and you don’t see many of those today in the UK. |
| Electricity pylon straddling canal |
After the second lock of the day, we stopped at the sanitary station and emptied the loo, got rid of the rubbish and filled up with water.
A massive electricity sub-station stands adjacent to the canal where a slightly diverted channel takes the canal right underneath a massive electricity pylon. A sewage farm adds a nauseous nasty niff to the surroundings and a half demolished coal gantry comes to an abrupt end high above the canal, the end sticking out like a broken tooth. It once carried coal from an adjacent branch railway line (now a popular walkway & cycle way) across to a closed and demolished power station. |
| Northern portal of Scout Tunnel |
The short but narrow Scout Tunnel and a flurry of locks takes the canal up to Mossley where we tentatively tried to moor for the first (and by no means the last time).
The only high point of the day came with the arrival of Bilbo, the well-known boat horse hauling the butty ‘Maria’, led as always by Sue Day. As always is the case with a horse drawn boat, we passed starboard side to starboard (rather than the usual port side to port) so as not to interfere with the towing rope. |
| Sue Day with Bilbo and 'Maria' |
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| Sue Day & Bilbo |
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| Lock 13W, leaving Mossley |
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| Old mill at Woodley |
Two more locks followed, close by two enormous mills somehow clinging onto a from precarious life with the river channelled through their premises – a legacy, no doubt, their early days when the river provided the power.
Again, we tried to tie up to no avail. The canal is extremely shallow and nowhere could we get close enough to the side. However, Pearson’s guide has a bollard sign just before lock 15W and a long row of bollards lifted our hopes. However, here again, on what is a designated visitor mooring, we had problems. The only place we could get close enough to jump to the towpath was just before the lock. Technically, we are on the lock landing but we are highly unlikely to see any more boats.Our cup overflowed when we found out that our journey to Huddersfield was going to be cut short. A couple of days ago we had an e-mail alert from the Canal & River Trust (C&RT for short) saying that due to the high rainfall a considerable amount of debris had collected in the canal between locks 14E & 15E, the other side of the summit tunnel. Investigations were under way, and the upshot was that today we had a follow up message to say that work wouldn’t start until next week and would take at least 2 weeks.
It seems extremely pointless to spend 1¾ hours heading through Standedge Tunnel only to turn round and come straight back through taking another 1¾ hours, having had to make another booking to come through and possibly not been able to moor anywhere convenient. After all the canal will be here another day.So we have taken the decision to carry on to Uppermill where the next winding hole is, turn round and head back to Stalybridge, Dukinfield and then head for home as we had planned to do on our return from Huddersfield.
We are disappointed (well, Elaine’s probably relieved), but as I said, the canal will still be here and we can perhaps try it another year.It has not been the best of days to say the least.
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