On the Leek Branch
Leek Tunnel - Currently Closed
View of the Churnet from our mooringWe left Cheddleton at 9:30 in glorious weather and travelled via the 3 Hazelhurst locks, Hazelhurst Junction with the Leek Branch and on to Endon where we turned around and retraced part of our journey.
The reason for this apparently odd behaviour was that our "black water" holding tank is getting full and we needed a pumpout. The pumpout connection is on the side of the boat and so we needed to be facing the correct way to make attachment of the shore pump hose easy. So the boat needed to be turned, and it is too long to turn except at an approved "winding holes", the first one being at Endon.
We then retraced our journey up the canal intending to turn round again back to Stoke. However since we have some spare time and now with no urgent demands (eg shopping or pumpout) to return to civilisation we decided to go up the Leek Branch.
This is a beautiful stretch of canal that wanders along the side of a wooded valley towards the outskirts of Leek. It no longer reaches Leek as the canal line has been obliterated by an industrial estate, and so stops nowhere in particular. However we cant even get that far at the moment because of engineering work following a major leak (with an "a").
After reaching the practical end of the Branch we turned and have moored next to an aqueduct where the Leek Branch goes over the Caldon Canal, directly overlooking the Holly Bush Inn where we moored a few days ago. There are splendid views up and down the Churnet valley and I am hoping for an impressive sunset because of the dust from the Iceland volcano.
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