Through Chester

A longer cruise today took us through Chester, and almost to Ellesmere Port.
We were away at 09:30, to Christleton Lock, just 10 minutes away. It was a pretty gloomy morning, much like yesterday, but brightened up later.

Approaching Christleton Lock

There’s 5 locks on the way in to the city, and all were in our favour. Makes a change! At Chemical Lock we had to wait for a few minutes while a gaggle of work boats came up, but that was the only delay all morning.

Blue Boar workboats at Chemical Lock
Hoole Lane Lock and Watertower
Hello

The navigation does a right bend as it hits the city wall, and it is from here that Charles I was supposed to have watched defeat at The Battle of Rowton Moor (see yesterday’s post).

Charles I Tower
Running along Northgate, through a rock cutting the 3-rise staircase is reached.

Rocky bits at Northgate
The staircase, being of broad dimensions, looks daunting, but is in fact pretty tedious to pass. With only one ground paddle at each chamber, it seems to take an age to even out the water from one level to the other.

Northgate Staircase Locks.
Then it was a sharp right turn above The Dee, passing the 2 locks down to the river and a rather abandoned looking boatyard.

Sad looking boatyard
It’s that time of year again…
From here the countryside is only a mile away, then another 90 minutes saw us within sight of the chimneys and towers of the refineries at Stanlow and Queensrferry. We pulled over for the night about 2 miles from Ellesmere Port, and will cruise the last hour to the museum tomorrow.
Depending on what it’s like, we’ll either stay there overnight, or come back out into the “green stuff”

From the canal, Chester was a bit disappointing. Yes you can see the walls, but that’s about the only thing that makes it different from any other city we’ve been through. We’ll probably stop for a look around on the way back.

Locks 8, miles 8½