Tuesday 8th June - Wigan to Appley locks.
Owing to a water shortage, the locks around Wigan are padlocked from 4pm until 9am.
Yesterday, on the way back from the Go Outdoors superstore; we had a look at Wigan lock. No sign of a padlock. The next lock is nearly a mile away.
We moved off at 8am in company with Douglas on Summerlee, we completed the first lock and were ready to pull the bottom paddles on the second when the BW man arrived to unlock them; talk about planning! Then onwards and all of the locks had no padlocks: Douglas was to go home by train from Appley Bridge, we said our farewell and carried on to moor at Appley Locks.
The view from there is quite something, a walk along to the disused locks and drained pound proved that the disused lock did not leak at all; a marked contrast to the on in use as the picture shows.
Wednesday 9th June - Appley locks to Scarisbrick.
A misty and wet start, the rain stopped after Parbold and remained dry for all of the swing bridges as far as the Rufford arm. There was a wooden frame, looking just like the skeleton of an Iron age hut together with a collection of wood carvings on a smallholding on the edge of Burscough, we carried on to the town bidge and moored there. Myra went off to Tesco's, whilst I spoke to Bill and Anne Sibley on Minnehaha, who will be part of the convoy across the Mersey.
A few minutes out of Burscough, you have fields on both sides of the canal, almost devoid of hedges, large windswept areas with machinery to match. A terrace of cottages along the canal bank had the front missing from one of them, I hope that it was a deliberate act of restoration.
We moored at Scarisbrick opposite the Mersey Motor Boat Club; Duncan met us and drove us to his house where Myra put the washing in their machine, we had a bath each and then Pauline provided a meal for us. Thank you both, a lovely gesture and one that was much appreciated.
