Water Water Everywhere

View from in a lock - water overflowing from above

Today started badly - it was pouring with rain. But we had to move. And we had concerns about water (for us, not the canal).

Rebecca needed to get to the next good mooring, a pub called the Rose of Lancaster, by this evening as she was booked in tomorrow for the trip down the Rochdale 19 - a flight of 19 locks that takes the canal into the centre of Manchester. The Rochdale 19 is only open to 2 boats travelling each way each day, these 2 boats being supported and shadowed by British Waterways staff. This restriction is applied because of concerns about security in this section of canal, especially if a boat gets stuck because of the amount of rubbish.

Unfortunately by the time we booked the second slot for tomorrow had already been taken so we will need to wait until Friday.

The water problem arose because it appeared there were no water taps between Littleborough and Manchester centre and it is possible that our supplies would not last that long. Fortunately contact with BW confirmed that a kindly resident of a canal side cottage at Slattocks allows passing boaters to fill up from his tap. Which we did.

Back to the journey - we set off after watering-up at 10:00am by which time the rain had eased greatly with just an occasional shower. The journey of 1.5 miles and 10 locks was enlivened by the amount of water flowing down the canal. At most of the locks water was overflowing the gates in torrents, which made opening the gates difficult and required care by the boat steersman in the locks to ensure that the back of the boat did not get swamped.

We arrived at the Rose of Lancaster mooring at Chadderton (Oldham), where the Manchester conurbation starts, at 12:15 by which time the rain had stopped completely and there was intermittant sunshine.