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| Wigan Pier |
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| Lovely scenery from Wigan |
Tue 28th and we moved through the lock that leaked on Friday night and moored past Wigan Pier to shop at Asda. A lovely warm sunny morning, we then passed the football ground and had a lovely cruise to Burscough. At one lock we were recommended to try The Hop Vine, so I walked along, liked it, & booked a table for 6.30, though I expected that as it was a Tuesday evening there would be no need to book. When we got there the place was heaving, fully booked, well provided with charming young waitresses, and their own brewed beer, plus several other real ales. I tried both of their own & they were excellent, as was our meal. It was far from expensive for what we had & we can only recommend it. We have spoken to other boaters about it & they all agree. Burscough is quite a good spot to stop & BW have just finished reconstructing the Wharf complete with a nice new services block.
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| Burscough Wharf |
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| The Hop Vine |
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| I have often thought that spikes like this to hold gates shut or open would be useful |
Wed 29th and a bright & breezy day, with the wind really cool. It would have been rude not to have a coffee at the coffee shop offering Illy coffee first but we were not late away for a slow, easy cruise to Halsall. Before we set off I bent the ear of a BW bod about a burnt out boat on Glovers swingbridge mooring. He agreed & had complained too & was told that as a Section 8 notice had been served on it, it could not be moved!!! If it is still there on our return I may well move it to the off-side!
On our cruise this day we had 4 different swing bridge mechanisms, but we tied up after just over 2 hours with a lovely view over fields. I walked into Halsall, but there is not a lot to see & the church is locked, though 2 women walking the towpath said the Saracens on the canal is good.
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| Interesting "building", what is it for? |
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| Carol's flowers, but the cool weather is stunting growth, especially tomatoes |
Thurs 30th June and weather as yesterday, the wind was really cool. We had another easy cruise to moor at Maghull just past Br 11. We had shared swing bridges with Roger & Maureen on Ramyshome and Klim & Rita on Brindley and they pulled in behind us. As we tied up I had a call from BW to say they had to get to a meeting in Burnley on Friday afternoon & could we be at bridge 9 for 8am!!! ( Interesting that one piece of paper from Wigan said 9am, another 9.30!! ) We said we would & passed the info on to the other 3 boats that were moored close by.
We had a good chat this evening, Roger will soon be the membership secretary for the Residential Boat Owners Association, RBOA, of which we are members & of which Klim & Rita are not yet....cue some barracking!
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| A serenade whilst cruising He was playing "If you were the only girl in the World" |
Fri 1st July and weather as the last 2 days and at 7 we all set off for br 9, passing through br 10 kindly opened by the lady off Westwood. Whilst waiting for BW Roger on Awesome Wonder went down his weed hatch. It was probably 8.10 before a slight break in traffic let BW swing the bridge & we were off and cruising past the Grand National racecourse. 40 minutes later we were at the next swing bridge where BW allowed the stragglers amongst the school children to cross before we were off and on the Litherland. On this run the debris in the water got worse & lily rolled over a couple of submerged objects. When we arrived the other 5 went down their weed hatches but Lily was clear & all we had to do was tip our Elsan casettes, as did everyone else before we set off for the Sankey locks where BW used a very special windlass to raise the top paddles.
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| Stanley Locks with Tobacco Warehouse |
Here we descended 4 locks, mostly working them ourselves, to emerge in the docks alongside the Tobacco Warehouse, supposedly the largest brick building in the world. We shared locks with Ramyshome & Roger had BW's guide to the route. Everyone had said it was fabulous and we were duly impressed, but for us we also had the new Museum of Liverpool to see close by the Liver building & the Cunard building, and especially good as it was in bright sun light. A couple of locks within the new canal route & we were in the final dock level & on via the Albert Dock & into Salthouse Dock. Supposedly into berth S4, except it was occupied, so S3 is now our home, with Peter & Sue on Sokai close on S1and we had a good chat after tying up around 1pm.
That ended our cruising for the week, just 33miles, 11 locks & 15 swing bridges.
Sat 2nd & Sun 3rd and lovely weather. We explored the waterfront & the other docks as well as parts of the city. Our location is tremendous, so close to the incredible city centre, its museums & shops. It is fairly quiet as Lily is well below road level. We get regularly rocked as people doing the DUKW tour splash into the dock. We have friends joining us on Monday & family coming up next Sunday. Just by the dock is a bus station with a very helpful desk giving out bus train maps and timetables, & there is an information office in Albert Dock. The Maritime museum, alongside, is worthy of many hours inspection & the Museum of Slavery on the top floor is interesting, though we couldn't understand why certain displays were there.
From what we have seen so far, if you haven't been to Liverpool lately, visit it, and if you have a boat, come by boat.
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| Albert Dock with Cathedral behind |
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| Fantastic bridge, Liver building behind |
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| New Liverpool museum |
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| Salthouse Dock moorings |
