Today we headed for Leek, which is at the far end of the Leek branch of the Caldon canal. The forecast was for rain in the morning, but as it was dry when we got up we thought we’d make the most of it. Of course, it wasn’t long before the rain started…

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Sarah moved the washing inside to dry, the socks ended up hanging above our bed!

4 locks later and we were passing under the aqueduct, that we’d soon be going over – not often that happens, but there’s one other canal-style flyover onto the Macclesfield we’ll be doing later too.

We both love a Jammy Dodger. A ‘Butty’, apart from being a sandwich, is also the name given to the unpowered boats that were towed along beside or behind a motor boat, it’s derived from the Welsh word meaning friend. We had a good laugh at this adorable pairing:

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It was a bit of a tight turn onto the Caldon, more of a 7-point turn than a 3-point turn for me.

We moored up just before the Leek tunnel, as we’d been told the moorings were nicer here than further on. We then explored the path over the hill to the end of the canal, and on to the shops to top up supplies. The signpost said 15 mins walk to the centre of town – I think they must have been Olympic foot race walkers to do it in that time though!

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We had a little extra entertainment as we returned from the shopping – the wind had picked up and a hire boat was trying to get in the tunnel but kept getting blown on to the bank and stuck in the mud. We gave them a hand and soon had them on their way again.