Back to start of cruise

Today started damp, and got worse as the morning continued. At least today's locks are nice and easy, mostly hydraulic "granny gear". The bottom gates loved opening, just before you started to lift the top ground paddles, and unless you were very fortunate someone had to run back to close the gate, and hope it stayed shut until at least one of the top paddles was up. The eighteen locks on the Ashton flight were done by lunch and we needed water, so lunch and filling the water tank were combined in one stop.
Much of Manchester's canal frontage looks to be a building site, some of the results are quite pleasant, while others are grotesque to put it politely
After lunch we set off for Marple, I don't think there are any locks on this bit, but last time I thought that we found one.
There's a lot of rubbish in these canals, with frequent grinding sounds as a hard lump glides along the bottom of the boat - ah the joys of urban canals. At least we haven't had any dead dogs (yet). Today's find was a pair of trousers around the prop, thankfully minus their owner....

On to Tomorrow