We set off at 8am this morning – we knew the forecast was pretty dreadful, but felt it gave us the best chance of a moooring in Chester somewhere close to the train station, ready for Sarah’s journey back to Oxford tomorrow. We were both prepared to have to plough on to Christleton and moor up towards the Cheshire Cat, but luckily plan B was never needed.

I cast off the lines, whilst Sarah made tea, coffee and breakfast smoothies.

The staircase was only a short way away, and as we arrived the gate was opened for us – a CRT boat was heading through and one of the crew had gone ahead to set it up, so we joined with them. Sarah only had to do one paddle so we did well out of it! Going up the staircase the rain absolutely wopped it down – Sarah wisely hid under a bridge, and I resorted to getting the brolly out. We paid in kindness with flapjacks, good job we made some more yesterday.

Luck was with us; someone presumably left before we got there and we had a great space towards the back of the moorings in Chester, away from the pubs and not too close to the road either. So we nipped in quick and tied up, before running below from the rain.

Sarah then went to investigate the Abakhan sewing shop that’s just around the corner from us. Having missed out in Liverpool, she wasn’t going to miss out a second time! Needless to say, she loved it 🙂

Sarah then came back to Oliver and we had lunch on board before walking up to Waitrose for some food shopping. All these nice shops nearby is getting expensive!

In case that wasn’t enough shopping for the day, we then had a little meander around the Chester Rows where there are a lot of nice independent shops, as well as some of the bigger names. Sarah bought some new trousers, as the current ones keep falling down; the healthy eating is certainly working! We then had tea and coffee at The Barista’s – I also had some cake, so might need some new (bigger) trousers myself before too long at this rate!

Of course the weather has cleared up now and then sun even threatens to pop out now and then, but we got in where we wanted so we don’t mind that we got a bit wet earlier.

We saw the Moomins today – with a little narrowboat in his hands. Bless.

We also liked the name of this little boat…

We bid farewell to Ellesmere Port, turning out from the basin and up the pair of locks to the top. Someone had left the top paddle open on the top lock, which Sarah only realised some time after opening the bottom paddles to get it ready for me. So we left a little flood behind at the bottom lock, oopsy! The canal at the top is just as full of weed as the basin is, if not more so.

The paddles don’t have the usual ratchet-type mechanisms, instead you just jam a little metal strip in between the cogs to hold them up.

We didn’t go far today, mooring up a couple of miles before Chester basin to avoid the rain forecast for the afternoon. With the afternoon to ourselves, it was time for a few jobs. We made flapjacks (a joint effort), and then Sarah cut my hair.

Typical Shroppie style, the sides are a bit shallow where we moored. After a while we got fed up of leaning to one side, so tried to find a slightly deeper spot further up – with limited success.

We saw a total of 8 boats going the other way today – something of a surprise as we hardly saw a soul when we came down this way. Speaking to the last of them, Chester is full of boats at the moment, so looks like we might be mooring at Christleton tomorrow rather than in the centre unless we get lucky with a boat leaving as we arrive.

Note from Sarah – I am still aboard, but Toby doesn’t take any half decent photos of me…..anyone would think he’s a single hander reading the blog!!!

With the less than perfect weather forecast, we moved to plan C and paid our £4 to stay in Ellesmere Port another night. This meant we could make use of the better weather and we caught the bus to Chester zoo. What we hadn’t bargained on was everyone doing the same! The place was heaving, but once we were on our way, it soon settled down. Below are a selection of the better photos taken on the day.

We awoke this morning to more rain, it was quite nice to have an enforced lie in as the museum doesn’t open until 10am. I still can’t get used to being moored next to some big boats. Cuddington is a Weaver packet boat built in 1948, and carried chemicals such as soda ash for ICI down the Weaver and Mersey to Liverpool.

There are a row of Porters cottages decorated for different periods, this is the 1950’s cottage, loving the ducks on the wall.

There was an ice breaker boat on display, these boats didn’t have motors, they were pulled by the horse and rocked side to side. Toby had great fun trying out the simulator and rocking backwards and forwards, I think he looks more like a character from the Michael Jackson Thriller song.

Very little is known about the remains of this wooden boat other than the name Lily and it’s likely to have carried coal with the NVB stamp. It’s unusual in that you can see the nails where the sides of the boat would have been.

We both took a shine to Friendship and the wonderful story of a couple living on the boat for over 50 years delivering coal. It was horsedrawn by Dolly for 40 years until sadly Dolly fell on the ice and into the canal. The owners lived in the small boatman’s cabin.

Lots of steam engines to see too, the boilers reminded us of Crofton Pumping station on the Kennet and Avon canal.

The Gardiner engine is just for you Peter, you speak fondly (and often) of your time there.

We arrived in Ellesmere Port today. OK, I confess, there’s no storm but it has been raining non-stop since about 9:30 this morning and we were glad to moor up when we got here!

We departed to grey skies and in no time were running alongside the bottom of Chester’s city walls, seeing them today from a very different perspective compared to yesterday. The rusty old bike someone’s pulled out magnet fishing hasn’t endured quite so well as the walls have.

There’s a short 3 lock staircase flight down into the basin at Chester. Sarah checked they were all set correctly and we started our way down. As we entered the second lock, a volunteer lock keeper (aka vlockie) turned up to help – very apologetic that he hadn’t been there to help us through the first lock. We hadn’t expected any help so it was a nice surprise. As with most vlockies, he was paid in flapjack currency. The big gates plus cill of the staircase make me look very small in comparison.

We spied out potential moorings just before Chester for our way back, and were happy to see lots of nice pilings and straight sections so there’s plenty of options for our return leg. The rain then set in, and Sarah and I took turns steering whilst the other went below. I feel a bit guilty that I sat and read the newspaper in my time below, whilst Sarah did all the clothes washing!

We reached Ellesmere Port around lunchtime. You have to pay a small charge to moor in the basin, and there’s not much choice as the only two moorings above the basin look suspiciously like they are in permanent use by two other boats (despite the 48hr mooring limit). The mooring comes with museum entry included too – which makes sense when you realise the basin is all part of the museum! We’re moored just in front of one of the larger boats in their collection. And yes, that is weed in the middle section, not grass!

The carpentry workshop made us think of Sarah’s Dad, Barry, who was a chippy by trade. They had a whole raft of different tools on display, including a rather fine looking hand-cranked drill press. It also had this lovely brass fire extinguisher on the wall.

There’s a good view from the museum, across the locks into the basin, with the Manchester Ship Canal in the middle distance, and the Mersey in the far distance. We’re hoping to see some passing ships on the MSC tomorrow.

Sarah’s been busy plotting the last stages for our adventure; the original plan didn’t take us beyond Birmingham but now I think we’re nearly sorted all the way home – though there are still a few possible variations on how to go through Birmingham! Old Line or New Line? Do we detour down little-used side loops or stick to the main canals? Who knows!? Find out later…

The weather was lovely this morning, not too hot but not too cold. We said farewell to Neil and Christine and set off, only to reach a huge long line of moored boats to get past at ‘tick over’. It went on far longer than we could show in a photo!

Just a few locks to do today, and they were all doubles. We reached the first just as another boat was about to go down on their own. Despite much tooting on our horn, they allegedly didn’t hear or see us and carried on. By the time we’d caught up they were nearly at the bottom, but they waited for us at the next lock and we went through the rest together.

They are part of the Lymm Cruising Club – we’d met another of their members in the locks yesterday. 16 of then set off from Lymm together on a two-week cruise. We’re not sure how many are still here in Chester, but the moorings are certainly looking pretty full. We managed to fit on the end of a line of boats with our centre and bow lines on rings, but nothing to tie the stern to.

Safely tied up, we had lunch and then walked some of the old city walls.

We then visited the cathedral, which was lovely and cool inside. Sarah lit some candles in memory of family and friends she’s lost.

The cathedral also had a Lego exhibition ‘The Deep’, with more than 80 sea creatures and over 400,000 lego bricks.

We couldn’t resist dressing up, even if it was meant for the kids!

We then walked back through town and back to Oliver. A quick trip to Waitrose (right by the side of the canal) to restock supplies and we’re all set ready for tomorrow.

Today was forecast to be one of the hottest days of the year, so why we ended up doing one of our longest days I do not know! We didn’t leave until gone 8am as we needed fuel from Venetian Marina which opens at 9am, it looked to be about an hour away on the map. It was boat after boat after boat with slow progress, it wasn’t all bad news though with two sightings of Kingfishers.

Toby did a great job steering with moored boats and moving boats all at the same time. We did the last of the single locks and then a sharp right turn, Toby doesn’t seem to be looking in the direction he should!

We both felt sorry for the chappies cutting the grass today, all that gear including a helmet and a face mask in this heat.

We had to queue at every lock which somewhat caught us out as we weren’t expecting it (and I hope doesn’t continue for the rest of the summer holidays). At one point there were four boats in the queue for one lock. The castle in the background of the second picture is Beeston Castle, we didn’t get a very good shot so you’ll have to wait until our return journey in a couple of weeks.

Iron Lock (sadly no photos as Toby forgot) has iron sides which are somewhat distorted so the advice is to let one boat in at a time, and with only one paddle working, it was slow progress. I went ahead and helped the other boaters going up and down, it was then our turn. The crew belonging to the boat going up after us decided to have a rest (with windlasses in hand) rather than help out. They don’t seem in a rush here, yet didn’t wait for me to get back on board and pushed us to the wrong side of the canal, forcing us to run aground. It must have been bad because Toby had a pop at them saying that wasn’t the done thing – and it wasn’t a hire boat.

We were slowly roasting and getting hotter and hotter, one more lock to go and it started raining with lightening visible, lucky it soon passed but we weren’t hanging about.

We’d agreed to meet Chris, Neil and Layla from nb Comfortably Numb, we saw a blue boat moored and so I tooted our horn, I then saw a guy on the back and said that’s not Neil! I apologised as I went past and he said your friends are round the bend. We moored up about 3.30 and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening with Pimms and Toby’s home brew putting the canal world to rights.