Marbury

 Today's Canal - Llangollen

We had to pay our final dues at the marina office and also empty the elsan. The car needed to be removed to the overflow space in the far corner of the marina.

By the time we were ready to unhook ourselves from the electric supply a fresh breeze had come along and the sky was a mixture of fluffy clouds and bright blue sunny patches. As forecast these conditions remained with us all day - not especially warm but pleasant enough

We navigated across the marina and out under the footbridge - only to pull in at the fuel point. We had about half a tank but the next places for a top up that we could recall were somewhat expensive (they are also hire bases and that tends to be the case) 80 litres for £104 - ouch! Diesel is rapidly becoming a greater part of the cost of boating. Glad we do not have a power boat that takes on 2000 litres at a single gulp!

It was not far to our first lock this trip - the first of the two Swanley Locks. Our lock operating routine has evolved over the years and when Christine is setting the locks, with Mike steering, she does rely on the back up that Mike can climb the ladders to lend assistance for an exceptionally stiff paddle of gate. This and the next few locks all had the ladders very close to the gates and it was not always easy to step onto them.

Most of the signage has been converted to the new corporate blue but here we had two locks still showing their monochrome black and white.

All of the locks on this canal have fast flowing bywashes - this is because the canal is a feeder to Hurleston Reservoir and thence to drinking water supplies for the surrounding towns and villages.

By the time we came up the three Baddiley Locks the blue outweighed the grey in the sky. Strangely the name plates on all three have been removed - perhaps the new blue is coming along shortly! Above the locks we moored up for a longer than usual lunch break, which gave Mike time to fix another glitch in setting up the new lap top. (Actually, he fudged rather than fixed it, leaving a proper mod to another time, perhaps after this trip)

Starting off gain we had half an hour run to the first of the three lift bridges at Wrenbury. This one has a manual hydraulic mechanism - around 30 stiff turns with a lock key!

The road bridge is necessarily much heavier and fortunately is now fully mechanised - although it does a bit of a reputation for unreliability. Great today as there was no problem. Not as much traffic as in the past - about 3 or 4 vehicles each way. Pity though that the ni e folk at the ABC hire base could not read the sins that indicate the towpath next to the bridge is only for bridge operation not for mooring up their empty boats!

The third lift bridge is marked on our maps as 'normally left open' but we had heard that it is now kept closed and indeed this was the case. Another 40 turns of the handle! There is a small plant nursery here which uses the bridge so that they can keep their ride on mowers on the off side. It looks as if new owners have taken over what was quite run down and are beginning to make it look quite a smart place.

We caught up with a hire boat with crew that were very unfamiliar with canal cruising and were struggling to keep away from the banks - not help by going at the slowest possible pace. We had to crawl along behind for at least half an hour, dropping into neutral much of the time. At least this meant that we had more time to look at the wild flowers along the bank.

Eventually they were able to pull in and let us pass and we made rather better time to Marbury Lock. By the time we were out of the top, the hire boat had arrived and it was clear that they were quite concerned at what was their first lock. So, we tied up to the lock landing and made sure that they came through safely and understood a little more of what it was that they were doing. In any event, we were planning to moor for the night at the next visitor mooring just around the corner - which eventually we did.