Monday 14th May 2012

Monday 14th May 2012

We woke early for us and filled the water tank. Sam timed his arrival just as cheese scones had been warmed up for breakfast. We were just about ready to set off when other boats started to pull out from their mooringsat 9am. There were six boats due to leave this morning ( we had booked the last slot 2months ago) we ended up being fifth out of the dock.

Each boat left in turn blasting their horn as they entered Albert Dock. We turned right out of Albert Dock and into Canning Dock where we joined the holding pattern of narrowboats waiting for the Lock Keepers to arrive. At about 9.25am the lock was opened and the first two boats entered it leaving the rest of us to continue circling in the wind. Then it was our turn to enter the lock along with the last boat. Sam had brought lots of serious camera equipment with him and after five minutes decided that putting things off for the morning had been well worth while. He has lived in Liverpool for around twenty years and was seeing things from angles he'd never seen before, going places you can't go on foot and some of the views made him feel that he was in a different city. As we headed through the docks there were bubbles rising from the depths, not sure what it was but it was slightly unnerving. It was just as good going back through the docks as it had been on Friday coming in. Kathy came to join us at Stanley Locks on her bike. I helped a lady from the other boat we shared the locks with to fill them, Kathy helped with the gates, whilst Mick, Sam and Kath stayed onboard. At the top we put Kathys bike on the roof and followed the other boats out of Liverpool, towards Litherland. Here we said our farewells to Kathy, Sam had decided to stay with us for an hour or so longer. The other boats were well out of sight and we thought that we'd be holding them up at Netherton Swing Bridge. When we arrived they were all sat waiting in line, but no BW staff to let them through. It gave us the opportunity to have a bite to eat and check the prop which had collected several plastic bags.

The BW chaps turned up and off we went again. Sam was wanting to jump off where he could get a cab back to Waterloo so we tried identifying a suitable bridge, which turned out not to have a way up to the road, so he stayed on til the next one, where he jumped off in style heading straight into a hedge. He regained his stance quickly and waved us farewell. When we reached Hancocks Swing Bridge we joined the queue to go through which gave Mick a chance to give  the lock keepers a tip. It's really hard at this bridge to count how many cars you hold up due to the road bending, but there were an awful lot of patient drivers as we all passed through.

So we were now three on board and free from the British Waterways Lock Keepers. On we headed playing leapfrog with the other boats at the swingbridges. The wind was quite strong and gradually there were only two boats left. We headed on to Halsall to moor up for the night. I cooked us meatballs with carrots instead of celeriac which worked okay.

We went to sleep as the heavens opened.

Smart guage at start of day 100, at end of day 100, 6 locks, 8 swing bridges, 19.5 miles, 0 herons, 3 stowaways, 1 bike, 1 hedge, lots of photos taken.