Bollington to Kidsgrove

We made the most of our nice wide towpath and got the rest of our log supply chopped up and stored ready for winter, although with the temperature dropping like it has been it seems we will start to use it earlier than normal this year.

We set off aiming to stop just before the Bosley locks, so again no locks today, but there were two swing bridges. We past through Macclesfield and to the first bridge which was a manual one and the hire boat in front of us kindly re-opened it for us to pass through as they were waiting for their kids who were geo-caching.

Then it was onwards to the Royal Oak swing bridge which is mechanical, there were two hire boats in front of us hoping to stop at the pub, which appeared closed. I operated the bridge and they went through followed by James and LJ who then shouted across there was another boat following him. Luckily enough I had already been over to the car who was waiting and explained there were a few boats coming through and he was fine with it, he wasn't in a hurry.

As we approached the locks we realised the line of moored boats were permanent moorings and there wasn't anything else, there was a space without a name on it and as it was now early evening and we were leaving early morning we pulled in. 

We started off the next morning for the locks just as a hire boat past us, by the time we reached the lock there was another boat behind us, and when we reached lock 5 boats were now starting to come up, so for virtually the rest of the flight it was one up and one down. At lock 11 we both spotted a damson tree full of ripe damsons so we stopped at the visitor moorings at the bottom and went and picked some, then ended up staying there for the evening.

Bosley locks

Next day we had a rough plan for stopping in Congleton it sounded like it was a town with a lot of history. As I had planned doing a wash load we passed by the visitor moorings and planned to moor just outside with no-one else around so I could use the generator without bothering anyone, unfortunately it wasn't to be as we couldn't even see the towpath due to reeds and trees growing on that side so we carried on and stopped a couple of miles past, but too far to walk back to look around town.

Had to take this photo, I've seen it on so many blogs

Another viaduct

Lovely snake bridge just past Congleton

Moored just before bridge 81

Here we got our roof sorted ready for the tunnel, the roof boxes had to come off as we thought they would be too high at the edges. This gave us the opportunity of giving the roof a good scrubbing. We have also dismantle our wind generator and control box ready for selling as we just don't use it with the solar panels.

It was then just a short journey with just a stop lock then stopped before the junction with the Trent and Mersey at Kidsgrove.

Stop lock 

Near Kidsgrove

17.5 miles and 13 locks

Total 363.50 and 223 locks