Our evening meal in the pub was cheap and surprisingly nice. It was very scruffy but also very popular. Patrons in various shades of sunburn sat around the lock and on plastic chairs by the road enjoying the evening sun.
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| Patrons of the Top Lock pub enjoying a sunny evening. |
On Wednesday the day started with the seven romantically named Johnson's Hillock locks. We followed converted flyboat Dee down the flight so it took a while. It was still very hot still and half way down we heard thunder which was followed by a dramatic hail storm. Jo was in shorts and sun-top preparing a lock and Robin on the boat between locks so we just got wet!
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| The hailstorm. |
We met flyboat Dee again later untangling a plastic sack from her propeller. She is 84 years old and before conversion was one of the cargo boats made for and working this canal. We sneaked past and reached the mooring just ahead of her.
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| Flyboat Dee stuck while her prop is cleared. |
After 8 miles and safely though Chorley, we moored at the Red Rock bridge, the short and inadequate visitor moorings which is the last safe place before the Wigan flight. We'll do the flight tomorrow; hopefully getting there before flyboat Dee. There's no other narrow boats going our way though, so it looks like we'll be on our own again. Friends and family are too far away to help and when we phoned Wigan CRT they said tough, ring this number if you get into trouble. The lock-keepers at Bingley five rise might have won an award for being the best in the country, but we reckon the Wigan team deserve one for being the worst. Maybe they'll prove us wrong tomorrow....
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| Harold moored at Red Rock with Flyboat Dee coming in to moor on the bank behind us. |
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