Money down the toilet!

The clouds appeared a lighter shade this morning, but we weren’t fooled for long before the heavens opened once again! Knowing instinctively that things wouldn’t improve, we ventured out into the wind and rain, and visited the small canal shop at Bugsworth Basin entrance. We bought a leaflet of ‘Parish Paths’ ready to explore the area.

 Lots of signs and information boards around explaining the history

There was even a model of how it looked when the place was at it's peak in the late 18th Century

Bugsworth Basin was a hub of activity in it’s hey day (which lasted for about 130 years!), a sort of open air factory with lime kilns all over the place. The lime was brought to the area using the Peak Forest Tramway which linked to the basin; the limestone was then burnt with coal in preparation to be used for building, farming and the booming textile and tanning businesses.  The burnt lime was taken on working boats via the canal up to Manchester and beyond to the industrial revolution that was occurring, particularly in the north east of England. The atmosphere of the surrounding area would have been choked with the smoke and sulphur dioxide from the coal emerging from the huge chimneys.

   The Information room and toilet block to the right, not huge!

The Lower Basin, Northern Pride in there somewhere (4th on the left!)

Looking back, the ruins of the storage warehouse and loading dock on the left

 

There are all sorts of tunnels to different basins and arms of the canal 

   Boats coming and going everywhere

Well in this case the same boat!

 

Until they found a mooring that suited

Bugsworth was one of the largest inland ports ever created on the English canal system. The basin had actually fallen into disrepair after it closed finally in 1927, like many on the system in days gone by, and it’s only thanks to many local volunteers that it has been lovingly restored.

A few extra shots around the Basin ...

We walked along the towpath to Whaley Bridge, and began our walk from the basin there. A little diversion was taken to go the train station to check out times for our journey to Buxton on Sunday, and the overwhelming smell of a ‘chippie’ drew us in, so we had a portion each for lunch sitting on a bench along the old railway track.

Whaley Bridge Bridge Basin with the old warehouse which was decapitated from a three storey to two storey building in the 1920s. 'Judith Mary' restaurant boat in the foreground

The railway bridge across the River Goyt going from the marina to the quarry

Detour up Bridge Street

Houses above the town seen from the railway station

View across the town to Chinley Churn in the distance

 

Canal Street and the Chippie

The old railway track that had such a steep incline that the wagons had to be towed by horses

More walking, using the guide book for a history of the places we were visiting, and we came upon a handy spot for a drink to wash down the chips – The Cock Inn. I shan’t repeat the lines from Barry relating to the pub’s name and how far away it was, just too rude! But I was tickled by a front page mock up newspaper cutting that they had on display inside - obviously about the landlord and looking very authentic, reporting about his sexual relations with a local goat! Hilarious!

Ventilation shaft for the 'Waterloo Pit', one of the many old coal mines in Whaley Bridge

Continuing through the park and up a steep hill past the War Memorial, then more climbing up to Toddbrook Dam, where the water supply for the Peak Forest Canal is sourced. From the top of the dam there were some awesome views of the Peak District, it’s such a pretty place it takes your breath away.  It's OK eating chips and drinking beer so long as you walk off the calories afterwards!

With all the rain we've had I didn't like to mention the fact the dam appeared to be almost empty!

View from the dam across the town, the ventilation shaft on the left

 

 Brookfield Pond along the walk, a nature reserve, the guidebook said it was teeming with wildlife - not today, sorry!

Ended the walk under the railway tunnel (that wasn't quite this colour really!)

 Back along the canal past these lovely canal cottages ...

... with their own weather forecasting (more accurate than the BBC Weather!)

 

Fast flowing stream running past Bugsworth Basin

You can see how nature can take over and eventually bury man's creations

Love these moss covered stone walls

Looks like it was taken in the snow, but it hasn't quite got that cold yet!

Returning to Bugsworth Basin we investigated further afield from our mooring and discovered The Navigation Inn about a hundred yards away, with a party for ‘Pete’s 60^th’ being held that night and everyone welcome – well we couldn’t turn down such an invitation! So after dinner off we went. What a lively place it was, full to the rafters of all ages of folks having a jolly time. At one point in the evening there were two strippers for 'Pete' (who apparently had been coming to the pub most of his life and was sort of the local 'janitor') – we didn’t venture into the party room to look as I’d seen the size of one of them, dressed as a nurse, and had absolutely no desire to see her naked!

The 'Navigation Inn', once owned by Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner) from Coronation Street!

It is the oldest still-inhabited building on the site, and was originally a farm that was converted to an Inn in the early 19^th Century.  It must've been buzzing when the boatmen were working in the basin. It’s full of canal memorabilia and local history, and reportedly serves delicious food.

The best thing about it was I found a £5 note that someone must’ve dropped in the ladies toilet (literally, I saw it looking at me, picked it out and and rinsed and dried it!), so that paid for half of our frugal evening’s drinks - yaay!

 

I know this is Friday's blog, being published on Saturday, but it will be Sunday in New Zealand - so:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

DAD!

Have a great day, sorry we can't be there. Will catch up for a drink in a month. See you at 2:15pm on 5th October, Gisborne airport.

Love Barry, Sandra and Jamie in England xxxxx

________________________________________________________________

p.s. Spoke with Jamie this afternoon and she's great and enjoying London.

Bleak beauty

Barry was up at 0630 this morning – because he was being dripped on! The porthole that he’d taken out (to measure the size of the glass to order three new panes) was leaking on him. He’d taped some cardboard over the hole about 10 days ago and I’m surprised it didn’t leak sooner considering the wet conditions we’ve been experiencing recently. The wind had been thrashing the trees about and the rain had been driving down in sheets all night, so I think it just gave up the ghost – time to get the new one in despite the rain!

Prior to that we wanted to take a look at Marple, as you don’t see much of it from the locks. It’s a charming place, much larger than we were expecting, and it had the best hardware store Barry’s found in England.  He managed to find what he’s been looking for to put onto the rear hatch to make it slide open and closed more easily – and a few other bits and pieces too! Go to http://www.marple-uk.com for some fabulous community spirit in action.  There’s a cinema that reputedly still has an interval with adverts and an ice-cream seller coming round, and I’m hoping we’ll go there on our return to the Macclesfield Canal in a few days.

On the way into Marple we passed the lock with the two tunnels again, so thought I'd get a better shot today

Our mooring was on the wrong side of the boat for replacing the porthole, so we moved along the canal a mile or so and Barry got it in perfectly while I went for a walk along the towpath. Strangely though the same porthole taken out some days before wouldn't fit in the very same hole today, so out came the grinder - enough said.

A piece of cardboard taped over the hole wasn't good enough

 

Left; These are the problem vents in the glass, very ugly and tend to cut out the light. Right; the repaired porthole - sadly the tape pulled the paint off, but it needs painting anyway!

The scenery is truly spectacular, even with the dark menacing clouds that fill the sky, and there are some amazing houses that you can see from the towpath. It’d be a great place to live and commute into Manchester; you’d get the best of both worlds, though I can’t imagine travelling such a distance to work anymore – it takes me 20 minutes to walk or 10 minutes by bike back in Gisborne, that’s far enough thank you!

We had two lift bridges and a swing bridge to go through to get to our destination – one of the lift bridges was up when we got to it as another boat was going through, so that was a relief as they're hard work!

  

Beautiful canal side garden just by the lift bridge

Always easier when someone else does all the work!

  

Why would you put such a bold red sign on such a photogenic swing bridge, did they think boaters wouldn't see the bridge but would see the sign - duh!

 The scenery is quite stunning ... 

... particularly during one of the few times the sun peeped out

 Most of the way it was pretty dismal varying between squally showers and pelting rain

Quaint little villages perched on the hill sides

We got to Whaley Bridge early afternoon but found moorings were scarce, so turned around and went to the other arm at Bugsworth Basin. The village close by is called ‘Buxworth’, apparently it changed it’s original name from Bugsworth as they thought it was more ‘desirable’!  Bugsworth Basin and Whaley Bridge are historic places - more about that tomorrow ...

There’s a railway line from Whaley Bridge that runs to Buxton, right in the heart of the Peak District, so we decided to stay in the area a few days and we're really happy that Lisa and Rob, my daughter and son-in-law, will be coming on the trip with us.

Some of the boats close by, showing signs of the change in the weather! 

The temperature inside the boat today was 14°C, so I can only guess that it’s been around 10°C outside, it certainly felt at least that cold.  The evening was bleak, blustery and bitterly cold, with the rain continuing through the night. There was almost a full moon that peeked through the darkness at intervals, so despite the coldness there was an ethereal beauty to the place and we look forward to exploring the area further.

Feeling human again

Charlie knocked on our door at quarter past eight this morning; luckily we’d woken up half an hour before in readiness for his arrival. I overheard him admitting that he'd not worked much on Barrus engines or the Mastervolt Control Systems before, so my fingers were crossed that he’d be able to work a miracle and sort it all out without us needing a replacement alternator or controller which would have cost us quite a chunk of the bank’s money!

He spent the whole morning and a bit of the afternoon rewiring the alternator and all sorts of other blokey things; eventually he gave us the fantastic news that power was restored, the batteries were charging and we shouldn’t need a new alternator. Hurrah! It still cost us for his valuable time, obviously, but nowhere near what it could’ve been so it wasn’t quite so painful writing out the cheque. Thanks Charlie (Classic Maritime Diesels of Lord Vernon’s Wharf; 07712052635), and thanks also to Peter from Braidbar Boats  http://www.braidbarboats.co.uk/ for sparing your time so readily.

Charlie's boat sitting directly opposite us

During the morning I went for a stroll along Middlewood Way, which is a beautiful 10 mile woodland walk that stretches from Marple to Macclesfield (I only did a 4 mile round trip, not the whole thing!). Once again the weather was a mix of sunny spells and showers; it seems that this is now the pattern here, but I’m still hopeful there will be the usual 'Indian Summer' before we return to New Zealand on 3 October – especially on Saturday 26^th September which is when we're getting married on the roof of Northern Pride. If the wind is blowing we may fly off into the canal!

While Charlie was tinkering Barry put the new glass in the porthole - a very tight fit!

With power restored our sense of humour and love of the waterways returned, so we decided to turn around and go back to complete the Peak Forest Canal. Of course it was raining cats and dogs again and carried on doing so all the way; but at least we could put the heating on and half way there I went and had a glorious hot shower and washed my hair – I felt human again!

We filled up with diesel and water, after purchasing a new tap connector (Barry left the last one at Plank Lane Swing Bridge while getting water, and we've been borrowing from other boaters ever since)

Turned and heading back to the Peak Forest Arm - that was our mooring space on the left

It rained most of the way back to Marple, where we moored at the turn off to the Peak Forest Canal. A cosy evening with lights, warmth and internet! Hurrah!