Portland Basin to Castlefields

We knew that we had a lot of locks to do today and that the first flight has a reputation for trouble so we set of at 6:30, turned onto the Ashton Canal and got to Fairfield Junction at the top of the locks at 7.20. We filled up with water before going down the locks. The water was in a tricky place and Liz made a complete mess of mooring on the water and then getting from the waterpoint to the lock!

This is not the easiest flight of locks we have been down. With broken paddles, no walkways on the top gates, paddles that go down by themselves, badly hung gates and having to unlock then re-lock the paddles with a handcuff key, Carl had his work cut out. Liz had to contend with fierce winds and weirs/bye washes trying to stop her getting the boat into the locks. There were also some very low bridges, one of them knocked our chimney over and moved the chimney stack inside the boat where it was attached to the stove! It took four hours to get down the flight of eighteen lock. We didn't have any trouble with "bandits". A few people stopped to watch or talk, but they were all friendly and didn't pose any threat to us. One silly schoolgirl said to her boyfriend "lets jump across the boat", but he pulled her away, giggling.

There are a lot of new waterside apartments, especially around Eastlands, Manchester City Football ground. there is also a lot of building going on as you go through Ancoats on the way into Manchester.

The next set of locks was the Rochdale Nine. These are nine wide locks that take you down through Manchester. The canal goes underneath some of the buildings. There was so much water flowing down this flight that it was flowing over the lock gates with so much force that it was very hard to open the gates.

We got to the bottom of these locks and moored up at Castlefields just before 2.00. The moorings were very busy, but we found a lovely spot next to some grass, between two weeping willow trees.

7.5 miles. 27 locks.

(Photos added 12 Sept)