We got up a little earlier this morning so as to guarantee being at the south portal of Preston Brook Tunnel exactly at 07:00, the northbound entry time (valid for 10 minutes). One can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but there still seems to be some wriggles in the line which needs a lot of concentration. There does seem to be the possibility that two boats might pass each other in the centre. I wonder how this would have worked in the days of yore, or is it just an emergency feature. Pressing on I was expecting to come across a hire boat base, but this seems to be no more. Perhaps a casualty of the Covid virus? What I always understood to be a water works in a modern building a little further on seems to have been joined by a large expansion of the site into a science and technology park.
The Bridgewater canal is very generously proportioned. It is wide for the most part, deep and has well engineered banks characterised by heavy coping stones. “No galvanised sheet piling here”. Be armed with mooring pins. So given that this was an early forerunner of the canals why is it so different in structure to the more modern examples. What were the craft that plied here in the early day? Surely they would have been horse drawn barges from the mines. Or have I got this all wrong?
We were lucky with a mooring in the centre of Lymm, though pity about the shortage of mooring rings in this popular spot. After a brief provisioning run we carried on to Heyford Marine for diesel and then past the under road bridge to moor on the long straight.
A thunderstorm is forecast tonight. Pat thinks it might be wise to take our TV aerial down.
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