Cotton fields marina to Failsworth winding hole

22 September - an interesting journey through an urban city

Up early at 6am with a phone call from No 1 daughter as car needs repairs but the good news is she has applied for 4 jobs. Big Softies helped solve the problem.

We met Brian who is the caretaker at Cotton Fields and he told us that self service pump outs are 8 pounds if he supervises,so we did that and loaded water before we left, the girls filled their boat "Albert" as well and we set off up the Rochdale.

Janet and Celia our lock buddies for the next few days

The first 3 locks were Bandit country with all the young men busy smoking their morning joints or pipes, not a lot of eye contact or smiles or good mornings. The further we went the canal passes through industrial landscapes and there are less bandits per square metre.

 

We stopped for lunch at lock 71 and talked to a crew coming the other way and carried on.
There was lots of water coming down the canal and the by washes were running full and strong, this made lock entry from the bottom into a stock car race with boats going sideways and bouncing off walls but we made good progress until lock 65 which had a work boat in it, sunk by bandits.

Autumn has arrived and the colours do make up for the rubbish that is around

Janet getting a lesson on cleaning her prop

 

Boat afloat and being pumped out after canal emptied. 

CRT were in attendance and had emptied the pound above, this explained the high water flows but meant we could go no further that day. We reversed back to bridge 78 where there are 2 bollards and moored breasted up for the night.

Our view for night. Must say CRT guys have been extremely helpful with information as we solve problems going through the Manchester area.

Some of the rubbish collected on prop through the day. Both boats had to stop in locks to clear them so they could move on.

We held a post mortem of the day over drinks and retired to bed.

TOTAL - 16 locks, 3miles, water fill and pump out