Here we go again

Back on the boat after a long break while John recovered from his shoulder surgery. It all went quite well despite massive damage to his rotator cuff but on the mend now and doing lots of physio. 

Apart from a couple of days on the boat with Laura and Cory it has been almost two months since we travelled anywhere.  The boat had to be abandoned in Skipton  (with permission from the CRT of course). All was fine when we got back and after clearing out the spiders, stocking up the fridge and enlisting crew in the form of my parents,  we headed west along the Leeds/Liverpool. We were very grateful of the help especially at the Wigan locks. 23  big, heavy, and in some cases stubborn locks, in one day, left us all with aching arms and shoulders. 

Mum and dad left us at Anderton and we decided to go down the lift and spend a couple of days on the river Weaver. Well worth the detour if only for the experience of going down the boat lift. Northwich is a nice town which is heavily investing in its waterfront with a new Waitrose and retirement apartments overlooking the river. 

We travelled all the way to the end of the river where it joins the Manchester ship canal but it gets more and more industrialised as you go along. Not at all pretty! Much of it is derelict factories and abandoned wharves. 

We got the story of the wreck from the friendly lock keeper. Apparently it was a hotel boat in its later life and moored by the lock for winter. It had a wind mill to keep the batteries ticking over to operate the bilges. One year there was a spell with fog and no wind so the batteries died and the boat just keeled over. Within a month it had been stripped of all its valuables. Because it had debts attached to it and because these debts would become the responsibility of the waterways if they got involved with trying to remove it, the wreck has laid there for 21 years! Quite spooky when you walk past it at night.