Into the Peak District

Set off at 9:00am with clear blue skies and a bit of a breeze, had a quick stop at High Lane to buy a paper and cruised to Marple where the Macclesfield Canal meets the Peak Forest Canal. We had hoped to moor at Marple to look around the town before going on, but yet again shallow moorings prevented this.

So we continued up the Peak Forest Canal into the Peak District. The scenery on this canal is some of the best we have seen anywhere on the waterways as the canal goes up the Goyt valley cut into the hillside. There are views of old mills and and the high moors above the valley when the canal isn't shaded by trees.

BUT, the canal is very shallow. Progress was slow - on a shallow canal if you try to rev the engine the prop sucks water from beneath the boat which lowers the boat towards the canal bed which slows you down further. Passing boats was difficult as there is a risk of grounding, and we saw one boat with a rather deeper draught than ours repeatedly grounding in the main canal channel. As today is a summer Saturday there was a reasonable amount of traffic so the journey was hard work.

Nevertheless the beauty of the coutryside made it worthwhile.

We moored at the end of the canal at Whaley Bridge, a typical stone built Peak District mining and Victorian industrial village with a useful Tesco where we stocked up for the next 4 days.