Chester - What A Lovely City

Thursday 5th September

Joy oh joy   I woke today feeling so much better.  Thankfully that sore throat has not progressed to anything worse and those tonsils have done their job, although I cursed them at the time

After a slow morning we readied ourselves to go and take that walk around town.  As we had just stepped off the boat, nb Waiouru with Tom and Jan came around the corner and under the bridge.

Jan, Tom and nb Waiouru

We were preparing for a wave and quick 'Hello and Goodbye' yelled across the water but to our great delight, Tom pulled in to the edge in front of us and invited us aboard for a cup of tea and a chat. 

Well we did not need a second invitation!  We spent a great hour or so talking all things Narrowboat, Kiwi and Aussie.  Thanks so much Jan and Tom, it was great to be able to reminisce about all things down under for a while  

Eventually though, Tom and Jan needed to move on, they had 5 locks to get through as they were planning on stopping at The Cheshire Cat, where we had spent the previous two days.  We also needed to go and do some sightseeing, as we must move on tomorrow.

First stop was the Chester Cathedral. WOW !!  It was quite impressive and these are just a small selection of the photos that I took.

Nave and South Transept from outside

 

Nave

Mosaic on the north walls of the Nave

One of the modern windows which I rather liked

Choir

A very large candlestick

The Lady Chapel window

Side windows in the Lady Chapel

Cloisters

Cloister garden

Hollyhocks in the garden

 

We then wondered around town, where we discovered a Hotel Chocolat.  Naturally I popped in and we did not leave empty handed.  Looking forward to some tasty treats later this evening
 

Eastgate St looking towards Eastgate and the city wall

Market Cross

On Northgate St

 

We made our way back after 4 plus hours of sightseeing. I was rather tired by this stage and was hoping to go back and photograph some of the streets and buildings in the late evening but the weather has set in and there is no sun to be seen.

We walked back to the boat via the north gate wall and spied the canal below.  Tomorrow we shall travel along this route, the canal that is, on our way to Ellesmere Port.  I think that we will definitely be stopping here again for 48 hours on our way back as there are more things that I want to see and also walk along the whole city wall.  There are some fantastic views from up there

Looking east with city walls on right

Looking west - city walls on left

Top of Northgate

King Charles Tower

Clock Tower on the Town Hall, seen from the wall

On our travels through town we also popped in to a '3' store, as Tom and Jan had suggested we look into the same plan that they are on.  My current sim provider has put in various software changes so that I can no longer use tethering on my phone.  This has meant using the phone handset for Skype-ing and although that still works it makes it a bit difficult when we both want to be in on the call.  Unfortunately I did not have my phone on me or my debit card, so we will sort that on our way back too.  It will end up being only $3 (read pounds) more a month but there is no issue with tethering and I believe that most people get a much better signal through them than we currently get while out and about. 

Well that is all for today's edition.  Cheers until next time

A Very Quiet Two Days

The past two days have been just as above for Andrew.  After our dinner on Monday night I had a little tickle in my throat, this turned into full scale warfare between good and evil throughout the night.  I even felt the flames and pitchforks! By the morning, with evil gaining the upper hand, my voice had virtually disappeared along with all pretense of sleep.    Andrew dosed me up with some sudafed, a cup of tea and left me to try and get some sleep.  He then scouted the local area to buy some bread, milk and dinner.  By the time he came back the daytime sudafed, with high doses of caffine, had woken me up rather than helping me sleep.  I did manage to get my knitted wrap finished along with a baby jumper, so not too bad.

After a good nights sleep, aided by night time sudafed, we cruised the last few miles in to Chester.  Andrew did the locking while I steered.  There was no way that I would have the energy to do these double locks.  Well we arrived, in one piece I might add, but I was ready for sleep again.  Who would have thought a couple of hours steering would tire one out so much.

So once more Andrew went off to do some shopping on his own and I slept.  Now that I am feeling a lot better, tomorrow we shall go and venture around town together.  Andrew says I will love it.  He walked back from town earlier along the old city walls.  I am looking forward to that.

And for a great end to the day, just as I was about to write up this blog and having read all the others that I follow, who should knock on the side of the boat ?  Go on just guess.  There are not that many boats along this stretch of the canal !!  Well it was Tom from nb Waiouru, a fellow Kiwi.  Both Andrew and I follow their blog too and over the past year we have past them a couple of times but never actually met.  So Tom, thanks for stopping by   It was great to finally meet you in person.

So there you have it, a very quiet two days but plenty of pictures to come in the next few days I am sure

Fun in the Sun

Monday 2nd September
This morning started out pretty chilly, so we bided our time in bed with our tea and coffee.  After quite a few boats had passed by, by 9:30am, we thought that it would probably be a good idea to get up and moving.  After all we had a number of locks to get through and up this end of the Shroppie they are all double locks again.

So off at 10:30am and we arrived at the first lock, Bunbury Staircase Locks.  Good start to the day, 2 boats going down and one coming up   So we did the 'staircase shimmy'   Once the boats were at the same level, one of the two going down moved next to the boat going up. The boat going up takes the place of the boat that has just moved, allowing the second boat going down to move up next to the first boat.  There, all boats have swapped locks.  Gates closed.  Boat going up fills their lock and boats going down empty theirs. Brilliant

Old Lock keepers hut Tilstone Lock

View ??

Our first glimpse of Beeston Castle

 
One of the other locks we went though was the Beeston Iron Lock.  This lock has been made completely of iron.  The reason for this is the soils around this area are all very sandy.  The lock kept collapsing during it's early years of use back in the 1800's.  The problam was finally resolved by building a complete lock like an iron bath.  Based on the same idea as the Pontcysillte Aqueduct.

Me working the paddle

Lock as seen from inside

 
As you can see, as the day progressed the sun got warmer and the cool wind became a warmer wind. 

Closer view from Wharton Lock

and further along the canal

    
Before passing Tattenhall Marina we tried to moor up quite a few times but as usual the edges were way to shallow. 

The moorings by the marina were in the trees, therefore bad tv signal, so we continued on hoping to find somewhere better.  Not far past the marina there were some long term moorings, all 132 of them, taking over 30 minutes to travel just over a mile !!

Anyway, no decent moorings again, so we have ended up at the 48 hr moorings beside The Cheshire Cat.  Turns out that it was a good thing as the  last meal that we had aboard did not quite smell up to the edible side, so we ended up in the pub for dinner.  And a particularly delicious dinner it was.

So a bit of tv and then off to bed.

Night all, sleep well

A Beautiful End to the Day

This evening's sunset :D

Night all :D

New Cruising Waters

Sunday 1st September
Not much of note today other than we have now left the Llangollen Canal and the company of Sheila and Jim.

We left Wrenbury this morning under a rather overcast sky and chilly wind.  We descended the Baddiley Lock Flight, Swanley Locks and Hurleston Lock Flight, seeing very little traffic in the opposite direction now that the summer school holidays are pretty much over.  Bit of a hold up at Hurleston for us and the 2 boats following, when a slow hire boat came in to the bottom lock before us and was having a photo session at the same time , I guess we have all been there.  I know we have, I took hundreds of photos on our first hire boat holiday

1st September and what I would expect would be the beginning of Autumn has certainly brought the autumnal weather with it.  The forecast though says it should warm up a bit again towards the middle of the week, just what the doctor ordered.

Andrew and I are looking forward to this short trip up the final stretch of the Shropshire Union Canal, as it is a bit of water that we have not traveled before.  We picked up a pamphlet on what to do, see and where to eat in Chester and I have to say that I am looking forward to some civilised shopping   Not that I have any money to spend though !  But also Chester seems to have a lot of history and interesting buildings to see. 

So Chester here we come.

Sorry no photos in today's blog but I do have this one from a beautiful sunset when we were staying at Trevor Basin.  I walked back to take these from the aqueduct.

Sunset over the River Dee

 

I Think That Dates Might Be In Order

Friday 30th August
As the blogs are getting a bit behind when being posted much later than the actual day, I have decided that maybe dating each day might be beneficial to family and friends reading all this twaddle that I write.  So as you can see that is what I have done

Andrew and Jim had seen a bus stop just up the road from the canal arm, which we all headed for just after 10am   The walk in to town would have taken a good 20-30 minutes.  The bus was just 10 minutes and we got to see a bit of Whitchurch residential areas.  In all looking quite good really.
The market, for which we were all there for specifically, was a bit of a disappointment.  But not to worry, we still had a wonder around town.  I had read the previous day that Whitchurch was originally a Roman settlement / town but I was surprised that the only mention of this was at the small clock near the 'center' of town (and no I forgot to take a picture mainly being that the clock was surrounded by information boards!)
We had a peek in the church who's bell tower can be seen from the canal arm and it had some very nice stained glass on the south facing windows and two small sections of the original stained glass in the north face windows.  The reason been that the church had been rebuilt back in the 1700's.
From there a short jaunt down to see some interesting buildings that I had seen - not a very good panorama I'm afraid , but at least you get an idea

Old School Buildings

 
The street was not curved but straight !!
It was originally a school (in the late 1700's) but has now been converted to flats.

That was the one nice thing that I had noticed around town that each of the significant buildings or areas had little history plaques giving the tourist a bit of information about the buildings/area.  This did make it much more interesting being able to read the information in the actual place you were rather than having to remember to look it up once we got back to the boat.
We did have a good look in some of the shops and made a few small purchases and then it was back to the boat and moving on.

We made our way to Grindley Brook Locks, intending to moor up at the visitor moorings ready to descend early on Saturday morning.  We were very surprised to see absolutely no boats waiting at either the top or the bottom of the flight.  Quick decision made, we made our way down the staircase and remaining 3 locks. 

Lock Keepers Hut - with all donated flags from around the world. Including a Maori flag! see top right

Grindley Brook Cafe

 
Carolyn might remember this cafe and small shop at the staircase locks ?  This was where she spent 30 minutes on our way up and 45 on our way back down in 2006, logged in to facebook (or I think it was MySpace then) to be able to chat to her friends that she was missing back in NZ    Today though we just zipped down, after I got Andrew into trouble , I asked him to empty the middle lock while I went to take the photo's and it was supposed to stay part full, at least up to a mark on the gates !  Otherwise the boat going into the middle lock would get caught on the cill because the water level would have been too low !  Never mind the lockie, who was having his lunch break at the time, noticed the problem and immediately rectified it

Once past Grindley Brook we moored up near 'Land of Canaan', must find out why it has that name ??  A lovely spot with a pretty view over the meadows.
And the fishing competition continued :)  Not sure who is in the lead anymore butI don't think that matters to the guys either to be quiet honest :D

Saturday 31st August
Upped pins at a reasonable hour, about 10:30 am to make our way to our destination for the day, Wrenbury.  It was rather chilly and we were happy enough to moor up before the lift bridge and just chill inside out of the wind.
We all made a quick visit to the chandlery to pick up various bits required for the boat, checked out the menus at both the Dusty Miller and Cotton Arms and all came to the conclusion that the pockets were not quite deep enough.  Instead we had dinner aboard and then trotted off to the Cotton Arms to wash it down.  I also sampled the chocolate fudge cake and it was every bit as good as it looked As this was our last night in the company of Sheila and Jim, it was a late one but most enjoyable.  Thanks to you both for your company over the past 12 days or so, it has been a lot of fun.  We will part company tomorrow at Hurleston Junction as we are planning to go North to Chester and Ellesmere Port, to satisfy Andrew's desire to travel as much of the canal network as he can.  Sheila and Jim will be going South to make their way slowly to their winter moorings with a small detour on the way. 

Tomorrow will bring new grounds for us, whoo hoo.

So cheerio again everyone and keep on chugging :)