Friday July 6th, Irk Aqueduct moorings - New Islington Marina

Another truly, truly awful day.

After lulling us with a reasonable day yesterday, it turned sour during the evening with some terrific downpours. And when we untied this morning, the skies looked really threatening. Grey, damp and we feared for the worst. We weren’t disappointed.

We set off at some really forsaken hour as travelling into Manchester, there is about an hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters of travelling to do before you get to Lock 65 and the start of the locked section where we had to be for 8.30.

Soon after we started it started to mizzle. Mizzle we can just about cope with and we weren’t too wet by the time we reached Lock 65. However there was a lock, an interesting lift bridge and a fire to deal with.

The isolated Kay Lane Lock was quickly negotiated, swiftly followed by Grimshaw Lane Lift Bridge. It wasn’t rush hour yet, but by the time we had got the boat through and the bridge back down and the barriers raised there was a pleasingly long line of cars, vans & lorries waiting to be released.

The fire was a bit unexpected though. It wasn’t on the boat, thank the Lord, but on a bridge. We cruised under a big modern road bridge with concrete supports and a concrete flat decking. Between the supports and the deck was a cavity out of which big flames were visible. There also looked like pipes running along in the cavity.

Once we were out of range, so to speak, we rang 999. The problem was that although we knew the bridge number and the road overhead (the bridge was called Oldham Broadway Bridge), the call centre emergency operator, no doubt covering emergency calls for about 5 or 6 different areas) wanted to know where we were in relation to towns, council areas and inside leg measurement amongst other things.

However, we soon got things sorted and she confirmed that a fire engine was on the way. Indeed, as we cruised through the revamped canal corridor as it passed under the M60 and its associated feeder roads we could hear a siren blaring and soon saw a fire engine tearing down the M60 the wrong way. Hey Ho!

After all this excitement first thing in the morning, it was almost an anti-climax to arrive at Lock 65 in good time, and to our surprise the Canal & River Trust guy (British Waterways is no more, it is now C&RT) was ready and waiting for us.

It was now that the heavens opened. It started to teem down. Deep Joy!

New development at Failsworth Basin

Approaching the new Tesco Extra, Failsworth

Through the lock, the canal arcs through the new Failsworth Basin – a major restoration headache as the canal had completely disappeared and had been built over, not least by a supermarket. However, it is now a pleasant open area with a new library, flats and shops built round the widened canal, complete with a huge Tesco superstore. However, there appear to be no mooring facilities, and, with it being within the “escorted passage” zone, I don’t suppose they see many boats stopping here.

Here the locks start in earnest. We got into our usual routine and were pleasantly surprised to be joined by Ian, one of the volunteer lockkeepers who assist boats through the section from Failsworth into Manchester. He should have been on duty yesterday, but had something else on, so, fortunately for us, he swapped to today.

Ironically, one of his first jobs was to ring the local canal maintenance men as we came to a grinding halt at Tannersfield Lowest Lock, number 68. Here neither of us could get both bottom gates to close. Either one would shut and the other one wouldn’t, or the other one shut and the first one didn’t. It appeared that something was on the bottom cill and was just shifting from one side to the other as we tried to close the gates.

After about 45 minutes, two C&RT guys arrived. Ian & I had taken shelter, along with Elaine and the boat in a nearby bridgehole as by now the rain was in stair-rods complete with thunder.

It took them about 15 minutes with a grappling hook to shift the item (the consensus of opinion was that it was a car tyre) and enable us to fill the lock and get on.

Once again we had to take it very slow and steady through the shallow section between Locks 68 & 70. This starts just at the boundary between Oldham & Manchester Councils. During the years of dereliction Manchester Council in their infinite wisdom decided to infill the canal with concrete, leaving just a 2" or 3" depth of water in the unfulfilled hope it would be a water feature. It became as much of a rubbish dump as the unfilled in canal had been, except now the rubbish was visible.

Rebar sticking up to the left of the boat

Because of the delays in freeing up the matched funding, the restoration team didn't have the money or time to remove all of the concrete. Thus the section between locks 68 & 70 just has a narrow navigable channel with the concrete capping still visible at the sides of the channel. Prongs of steel rebar still stick up above the water surface. Pleasant it is not.

The rain by now was so strong that we moved from lock to lock in an almost trance-like state. You remember that Guinness advert with the impossibly cool 50 year old surfing dude with the white horses in the surf saying “Tick follows tock follows tick follows tock….”? It was like that with us, except that the surf was the water gushing either into or out of the lock, the horses were the ducks and bl**dy geese. I felt like saying Lock follows lock follows lock follows……

The C&RT guy at Lock 65 had told us that a single boat was on its way up the flight and we could therefore leave a bottom gate open for them which helped us enormously. However, despite the hour long wait we had had at Lock 68, the place where we had passed the boats going down on our outward journey came and went and still no sign of the boat. Ian had told us that when we crossed he would then turn round and help them back up the flight.

By now the rain was beyond a joke. We are by no means fair weather cruisers and have got wet on many occasions in the past and will no doubt do so again. But on a day like this, we would normally have stayed put and not moved knowing the forecast as we did. But we were committed to the journey as it had been booked and we wouldn’t have been able to cancel this morning as we were already on our way down when the switchboard operators started.

The towpath was already either a quagmire if not paved, very slippery and dangerous if it was stone sets or slabs, and already a lake if it was a hard surface. Where you stood to open paddles or open gates were awash as they are traditionally worn down with the usage over the years. By now our wet weather gear was wet on the inside, my hat was letting in more rain than it was keeping out and my work boots were squelching with every step.

Eventually we met up with the ascending boat at Lock 76. It was a Black Prince boat, presumably out from Bartington Wharf on the Trent & Mersey, with at least four crew on board. Assuming they started out from Piccadilly Basin, why they had taken so long to climb up just 7 locks? As we subsequently found out they had left both top gates open for us (they needed both gates open to get in and out of locks) which made extra work for me. They had also locked some of the anti-vandal devices and not others which was equally as annoying.

We said farewell to Ian who had really helped us a lot as he turned round to help the hire boat up to the top of the flight and we carried on, back on our own. And it was still teeming down.

At Lock 77, Anthony’s Lock, I found the same problem that Elaine found on the outward journey where the nearside bottom gate’s balance beam leaves no room between it and the guard rails whatsoever for anyone to get round to the bridge and the other side of  the lock. The beam is sufficiently high to stop people straddling it, and the easiest way is to get down on all fours and crawl under. Just what you want to do when it’s pi**ng down with rain and the locksides are awash. This lock is also the deep lock; at 14’, the fourth deepest apparently in the country. The height above water level was increased during restoration to allow for mining subsidence.

We were at least on the last lap now with just a handful of locks between us and the marina. The last two or three locks were worked very slowly as so much water was pouring over the top gates (due the water levels rising with the continuous downpour) that the bottom paddles were only just letting out enough to ensure we did in fact drop.

The towpath was by now almost completely awash and the walk between the last two locks included a detour up a grass bank into a park and back down again as the towpath and the lock landings were under water. The little park seating area on the opposite side looked rather incongruous with the canal overflowing across its surface with the seats and litter bins just looking as if they were floating.

At last the final lock. By now we were so wet that if we had got into a full bath, we couldn’t have got any wetter. The last section between Lock 81 and the marina entrance passed almost in a blur. We turned into New Islington Marina and tied up on the first set of mooring rings.

Excluding the hour’s delay for the car tyre, it had taken us 3½ hours to do the seventeen locks. Again, not bad going for a pair of geriatrics.

We were inside, stripping off our wet clothes and into a hot shower before you could say Jack Robinson.

We have never cruised through conditions like it before. Either we wouldn’t have moved, or we would have stopped and tied up before it got too bad. Today, reminded us a bit of hire boating days where we just had to keep going.

Anyway, it’s all done now. We shall stay in the marina until Sunday, to dry off, recover and use the laundry facilities as out washing machine has packed up after nearly eight years of use.