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Stop here over night.

Lymm to Leigh/Wigan

Before leaving a quick photo of Lymm, the one you see in all the magazines.

That house! in Lymm
Select a picture to see it full size.

Were off! and we soon hit "Little Bollington", another option for stopping for the night. The canal still feels rural, but we soon reach the urban Manchester of Broadheath. It is all very interesting, a mixture of parks, industrial complexes and urban housing. It is like this all the way towards central Manchester. The canal is broad here, so we open up the throttle a bit, the engine sounds good, it likes working. We trundle through Sale and on, we are making good time. 

Then we loose power, start smoking, we pull over, we have just gone under the M60, we have just stopped short of a boat club. We have lunch and let the engine cool down, I had removed the engine cover and felt the coolant, it was really hot!

On re-checking the engine, we found we had also run out of fuel - we carry two small cans of fuel, so these are fed into the tank, and the fuel pumped into the engine - we are off.

Waters Meeting from 1981 pic by:Dr Neil Clifton.

We take it steady in to Manchester`, (partly to save fuel) and take the left turn (at Waters Meeting) towards Worsley. We look out for Kellogg's, it still has a boat wharf, but all fenced off, so you can't pay them visit. The Trafford centre had two boats out side, and a couple of fisherman. (It could be the husbands waiting for the wives to come out.)

After a while we end this long straight stretch dramticaly, there is a slight zig zag in the canal and your are at "Barton Swing Bridge" and you are crossing the "Manchester Ship" canal. You are then passing a rather run down Barton upon Irwell, with lots of boats around? also lots of fishermen.

We eventually pass under the M602 and see the light house infront, on a sharp left and the run up to Worsley. This stretch we first did it about 5 years ago looked pritty desolet, now it looks less harsh, perhaps it has greened over? but the canal sides still have its heavy duty armaco sides, which look very inhospitable.

The last part of the run into Worsley you past some very nice large properties, then another sharp left, and straight in front a posh mooring in front of the sales office for yet more expensive housing, the rest of the crew say I am not allowed to moor up there, I say its got power points! but it cuts no ice and we carry on to the boat yard, where we fill up on fuel.  It is late afternoon, so we decied to keep going.

The whole area seems to be greened over decaying industrial sites, spoil heaps, mining subsidance etc. We pass a marina, with a large pub next to it, it does not look inviting, so we keep going.  One of the places we pass is Astley Bridge where there is a Coal Min museum, but it is to late to visit.  Later we go under the A580, we cruise through Leigh, we had once left the boat here at a small marina, Leigh for a new place seems a nice place, with lots of new development by the canal.

But we decied to keep moving, passing Pennington Flash Country Park, you recieve a good view from the canal. We are then aproaching Plank Lane, we are not sure if we will be able to go much further as Plank lane is operated by British Waterways, but has there man gone home? I pull in and hold the centre rope while Josh goes forward to investigate. He comes back grinning, the BW man had appologiesed for not seeing us and getting the bridge ready for us, he was just starting his tea, he would just finnish his tea while it was still hot, and he wouuld then have the bridge open in a jiffy.

We gave him a big wave, we were still on the way to Wigan. We travel only a little further to Dover Bridge, and pull in for the night. We have tea and have a drink at the pub next to us. I liked the our, but Sue and Josh were less sure, oh well! We go back to the boat, and entertain our selves before bed time drinks and so to bed.