Tuesday July 17th, Dukinfield Junction - near Hyde Bank Tunnel

After more rain overnight and more this morning, it was a fairly fed up couple who set off this morning expecting to get soaked again.

Funnily enough, after such an inauspicious start, it almost cleared up. There was the odd smattering of rain, but the outbreaks had longer intervals between them and didn’t last as long.

Dukinfield Junction

After making the very tight turn into the Peak Forest Canal, we immediately crossed the River Tame on the substantial aqueduct and set off on the lock free pound towards Marple. Did I say “lock free”? It’s the first cruising day without having to work a lock since June 3^rd when we left Leigh to make for Castlefield Basin.

Tame Aqueduct from river level

Lift Bridge at Dukinfield

Mind you, the windlass wasn’t totally inactive as a lift bridge soon after the junction needs one to wind it up and down as well as a handcuff key to unlock it. It carries a track that led to the optimistically named Plantation Farm (it was one once before industrialisation and urbanisation swallowed up the land). Here lived Mary Moffat, the mother in law of the explorer David Livingstone.  He is said to have been inspired by her life as a missionary.

Despite being caught up in the suburbs of Dukinfield, Hyde & Romily the canal essays a rural course managing to avoid the worst excesses of factories. There are occasional outbursts of industrial buildings, but the canal is tree lined and sheltered.

The trees do, however, cause the odd moment of worry every now again as they have not been cut back for many a year and in places have overgrown the canal so much that visibility is seriously restricted. In one particular place the steerer is completely blind as he is engulfed in leafy foliage for some distance. Good job there wasn’t any boat coming from the other direction as there was no way they could have seen me and I certainly wouldn’t have seen them.

The rural idyll is seriously disturbed at Hyde as the M67 (or at least the short section of motorway that was actually built between Manchester & Sheffield before the money and the ideas ran out) makes its presence felt at first by the noise and then by a long skew concrete viaduct. This caused the canal channel to be rerouted and results in two right angle bends as it regains the original course.

Here there is a nice combination of buildings – two canalside warehouses and a lovely turnover bridge where the towpath is taken from one side to the other in such a way as to enable the horse to cross the canal to the other side without removing the towing rope. They are beautiful structures and we will see many more on the Macclesfield later on.



Approaching Woodley Tunnel

Despite being lock free, the canal is not without interest. Two tunnels interrupt the journey as the canal burrows under a couple of low ridges. The first, Woodley Tunnel, is just 168 yards long and is narrow having to accommodate the towpath as well. The second at Hyde Bank is just under twice as long, but here the towpath is taken over the top and theoretically two boats can pass inside its low bore.

South east portal of Hyde Bank Tunnel

For the first time today we have actually seen steel piled banking – the first since we left the Trent & Mersey Canal in late April. And, not long after Hyde Bank Tunnel we saw another boat tied up on a long length of piled banking and so we thought we’d give it a go. To our surprise (at least after the experience of the last week or so), we could get into the side quite easily as here we stopped. Tomorrow, the windlasses will come out again, but we’ve had a nice easy day with not too much rain. Although the towpath is a quagmire, we have actually seen some sun this afternoon!!!!!