The journey from Slattock top lock to
Littleborough wasn’t without its hassle and excitement. In the form of rubbish being picked up
in our propeller. !
In one hour
Mick had 3 visits down the “ hatch”, all in very grubby areas around Rochdale.
Loads of thick plastic, clothes , ropes and rubber jonnies. !!!! Yuck. After handling all this and wearing
gloves, you really felt like a good, hot shower. ! and for me, I felt like disinfecting my
boots !!!
Sounds a bit over the top, but
folk here haven’t heard of dog poop bags. And signs saying dog fouling
prohibited and £100 fine incurred, well, that’s just one big joke. You could make £1,000 per lock for sure.
Anyway, we
started heading towards lovely scenery and getting away from the urban madness,
and at a sweet little swing bridge, Mick heard an ominous rattling from the
prop. This time, on investigation it
seemed to be a lot of high tensile steel, all wrapped up in a large tent, that
was now wound nice and tight around the prop, and stopping us dead in the
water. Thankfully, the bloke we are
travelling with is an engineer, and happened to carry BOLT CUTTERS( these will
now be purchased for Trundle as soon as !!!!).
2 hours later,our 2 skippers with
cuts and gashes from the steel, managed to free us. The cuts were attended to,
and we carried on the Littleborough, and that evening we went to a pub that had
been recommended by chum Richard. !
Great beer at £1.60 per pint. A lovely, old pub that hadn’t been messed
with, dogs very much welcomed, and some nice conversation with a one time canal
volunteer called Ian,
.
Wednesday
(today) and we have pushed on to the summit. Hard locks, but a good
challenge. Views getting better. Now moored at the summit, and after having
not seen sight of another boat, I felt our centre rope( holds the boat into the
side of the canal) straining, and looked out to see Hotel MotorBoat and butty
passing by in the……………………RAIN..
Tomorrow, we
make our descent towards Todmorden, and hoping to get to Hebden Bridge for the
week-end. However, there are many, many
locks in between, so am keeping fingers crossed that we make it. !!!!
Toby , 13 years old with Finlay 12 years old. Toby is a " Highland Fighting Terrier ". the story will be told later.
No comments:
Post a Comment