Bunbury to Chester We left Bunbury quite late, but soon after a boat had gone by. I was a little surprised to see the same boat coming back towards me as I neared the locks - obviously turned around, but there was another boat at the locks so we joined with them. They were a fairly ineffectual hireboat, but at least they didn't mess about to much, and we were soon down to the Iron lock. Our friends moored up here to go and look at the castle, and we continued on after waiting in the queue that had built up. This lock has an extra gate paddle to speed things up, but it wasn't working!
We passed a couple of slow boats on the long pound to Chester, and arrived at the lock just as a single boat was leaving. They were going slowly down the canal (and I mean slowly), and so we turned the lock quickly in the hope of catching them up. By the time we were leaving the lock they were just entering the lock below, but I'm not sure they had seen us. I don't think they really wanted to share when I arrived on my bike, but they pulled over to the other side. I biked down the flight getting the locks ready, only one was full, the rest were empty. I had a long wait at the full lock for the boats to arrive, but the others were closer and so the boats arrived before the lock was ready. Instead of landing some crew, they left me to open both top gates, having to walk around the lock. We both moored up just before Iceland. TV signal wasn't to hot, and I didn't hold out much hope for the satellite with trees, and buildings but we just managed to get some channels including BBC1 which was the main one I was interested in for Britain from the Air. Cheers, Mike -- Michael Askin http://shoestring_DOT_zapto_DOT_org/
