Wednesday, 8 October 2014

North-west fringes

We're never likely to treat our boating adventure as an exercise in ticking boxes – done this one, done that one. But with such respected illuminati as Adam and Halfie including some recent cruise stats, I was reflecting on the fact that we've now visited most of the extremities of the north-west part of the network.

Llangollen
Maesbury Marsh on the Montgomery canal
Ellesmere Port
River Weaver, top and bottom
Runcorn
Liverpool

The main exception is the Lancaster canal to Tewitfield – we only got as far as Tarleton on the Rufford arm of the Leeds and Liverpool, since the Ribble link wasn't available in our timeframe. We didn't consider advisable venturing onto the Manchester Ship Canal at this stage of our experience, nor did we think about getting down to the River Dee at Chester.

With the weather turning and a long trek back to Great Haywood ahead of us, we made a relatively early start today and came back through this rather uninspiring countryside to Burscough Bridge. We were going to push on to Parbold, but while we were paying a quick visit to Tesco the heavens opened, so we're staying put. Coming back isn't quite the same as going, especially with a leaky, grey sky, Wigan and Manchester in prospect, and fairly long days of cruising. But, looking at the news, who are we to complain?

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