From the Maccie to the Peak Forest

We moved about 1½ miles yesterday to Poynton, got the aerial set up and watched the Spanish Grand Prix. What a shame for Lewis Hamilton, crashing out with a puncture with less than 2 laps to go. But Mark Webber certainly deserved the number one spot, with a solid, faultless drive from start to finish.

Braidbar Boats is a well respected builder, and is based in an old arm at Poynton.

BraidbarIt’s funny, you here about these respected builders and expect them to have state of the art facilities. But most are like this, a couple of buildings alongside an old wharf.

There are a lot of linear moorings in the area, supplying demand from the boaters of Manchester and Stockport.
So the first mile or so of today’s trip was at tick-over.

High Lane has another old arm, this one occupied by the North Cheshire Cruising Club.

NCCC Moorings
Goyt Mill indicates that you've reached Marple
We arrived at the top of the Marple flight at around 10:30, pulling on to the services to empty a loo tank before descending the flight. There was a familiar looking boat mooring on the VM opposite…. Dave and Barbara on Liberty Bell.
We’d not seen each other since we left Paddington Basin last June, so had a 30 minute catch up session.

Dave and Barbara
Unfortunately our chat allowed another boat to start the flight ahead of us. So we had all the locks against us with no boats coming up the flight. Still, it only took us 2¾ hours to get to Lock 1.

Marple JunctionIn Marple Locks.
Samuel Oldknow's warehouse about half-way down

Horse Tunnel under Possett Bridge, near Lock 13The flight starts amongst the built up area, passes through parkland…..

And finishes in woodland.
I’d forgotten how hard the bottom paddles are to wind. With the locks around 13’ deep there’s a lot of water pressure against them and they take some getting going. In fact I had to put my full weight on the windlass sometimes, and it suffered….
The handle should point straight back at the camera!

We were both pleased to get out of Lock 1, 214 feet lower than when we started.Over the impressive Marple Aqueduct, and we moored before Hyde Bank Tunnel.

Marple Aqueduct, with the railway viaduct in the background.
These aqueducts always look more spectacular from below, but the heavily wooded banks of the River Goyt prevent more than a glimpse of the 100-foot high structure.


It’s been another cold day, with odd showers all day. Not much better tomorrow, according to the weatherman. Still, no locks to do, just a short cruise to Portland Basin. It’ll be Wednesday before we do the 18 on the Ashton Canal. Looking forward to that…..

Locks 16, miles 6½