Toby’s migraine continues to linger. I expected us to be stuck in Parbold all day and was planning my bus route to Asda and an afternoon washing the boat. Toby said he was up to cruising and felt it couldn’t do any harm, so around 10am we cast off. The marks on the bridge are from the horse drawn days and the boat being hauled by a rope.

A tree had come down and was being cut into smaller pieces for removal, luckily it didn’t cause us any delays.

Eight double locks today, we met up with nb Pema after the first lock and shared the other seven which made work a lot easier, it was drinks, eats and pees on the go, we were sticking with them! Some of the locks are duplicated with one each side, although no longer in use, I did say to Toby we needed to go through this one, it’s only when I saw it closer, I realised we couldn’t and it was the next turning we needed.

With blue skies, we never tire of the beautiful countryside.

Toby and Lily having a natter in the lock.

We soon approached Wigan and Wigan Pier, it seems such a shame that it’s in disrepair, it could be such a wonderful place – although a pier inland is a bit strange.

We had some delays through the lock with a boat running aground in one of the pounds. We could see how much lower the pound was with the bank visible to the side. We stayed in the middle of the channel and made it to the next lock.

There was a timed road swing bridge which closes from 4.30 to 6pm, we increased the revs and made it at 4.25 – phew! After the bridge we stopped to fill up with water, a guy on a yoghurt pot asked us how to operate it as he couldn’t get it to work, he wasn’t best pleased to hear that he was stuck there until 6pm. We moored soon after, with Toby’s sore head, I offered to bang the pins in, and boy did I whack them in. Toby said they were a perfect pair of pins, I’ll take that, it’s the only time anyone will refer to my pins as perfect!