Macclesfield Canal:Macclesfield

I learned this morning, when checking, that Bosley Locks are now open with no restriction.  So I set off sharply at 07:45.  Today is promised to be another hot one and the cool of the morning is not to be wasted.  I had already opened up the cratch fully to enable easy crossing from side to side when exiting the top gates.  The plan was to always have the next lock open before leaving the previous one which meant walking up, sorting that and then returning.  Having monitored the behaviour of the boat in the lock when operating top paddles I decided to just use one Side and deal with the next lock whilst the boat was slowly rising.  This worked out well.  On leaving the lock the top gates are easily closed with the stern in the lock throat.  Lock 12 was empty already, 11 was full, but the remainder as far as 6 were already empty, so that speeded things up.  A volunteer lock keeper appeared, saying that all the next locks were full but that she and a colleague would see that the bottom gates would be open for me when I got there.  I noticed that they were not rushing to empty the next lock until I was well through filling the one I was in, thus saving water in the bywash.  The whole flight took 2 hours 20 minutes.  Stopping for water by the bridge was next on the agenda and with this accomplished I set off for Macclesfield.  Royal Oak Swing Bridge is the next obstacle.  It is an electrically operated affair worked from a console on the offside, but there is a footbridge as well, so technically easy, except for the traffic.  Once I got the boat through I realised that there was nowhere to moor up on the other side due to maintenance work, so just whipped a stern rope around the nearby fence post, leaving the stern very close to the bridge swing.  That saved some time for motorists in the now growing queue.  Next obstacle is the Broadchurch bridge which is manually operated from the offside.  My luck was in as another boat appeared opposite and the crew kindly let me through.  I got to Macclesfield at 13:00 hrs and found a space on the pontoon moorings.   The casserole which I had in the slow cooker all morning was ready for a cooked lunch.