Date - 27 /08/08 Day - Wednesday Start - 0900 End - 1930 Harnser's present position http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route
A very overcast day with a bit of rain this morning, things didn't improve much all day but there was a bit of brightness late afternoon. By the time we set off several boats had passed but we also meet a few so the locks weren't to bad, some for and some against. One boater warned me of the chaos at Grindley Brook, when we arrived there was a boat just leaving the bottom lock and nothing ahead, when we got to the top of the three and the bottom of the staircase there was the boat we he helped through the first lock of the day. He had seen the lock keeper and he was locking all waiting boats down, this turned out to only be two and then we started going up. The lock keeper assisted the first boat and we sat tight behind them so things weren't to bad at all. We decided to go down the Whitchurch and walk into town, as you can't turn down the arm from our direction, you are supposed to go to the winding hole and turn so you enter from the other direction, I reversed down. This saved two lots of winding and left us pointing ready to leave. Lo and behold we ended up in Tesco for our shopping. On our way back to the boat we had a look at the plans for phase two of the restoration with the large mooring basins in the town and an incline plane. I don't see it happening myself. We left the arm and carried on up the canal and I rang BW to book our passage down the Mont. You also have to book to get out as apparently they are only allowed 12 lock movements per day. Now the canal started to get busy, so we decided to moor at Platt Lane Bridge to eat in the pub only to be told it had burnt down, so we set off again and the traffic got worse. The poor chap that opened the lift bridge got stuck there while 5 boats went through. Once past the Prees Branch things quietened down for a mile or so and then about 6-30 they started coming thick and in so cases fast, so much so that we decided to pull over and moor just before bridge 50 where we were able to get close to the towing path, we had intended to do another mile to the Canal Society 48 hr moorings but thought with the amount of traffic we were meeting they would probably be full. -- Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Join SOW and help save our waterways http://www.saveourwaterways.org
