'Spent most of the month cruising up the Trent and Mersey canal through Burton on Trent, Great Haywood, Wedgewood, Stone. Stoke on Trent to Kidsgrove where we changed to the Macclesfield canal. All the way up the Macclesfield to the Peak Forest canal, which is particularly lovely as it is a contour canal and mostly overlooks a valley on one side or the other. Most of the time it feels as if you are on an aqueduct surveying the distant views from a high vantage point.
We left Whaley Bridge shortly before the reservoir collapsed and headed for the Marple flight and it's opening after a two year closure due to collapsing lock walls and leaks.

Marple flight has been a real problem for number of years with one of the locks shrinking and locks 14, 15 and 16 all having having serious leaks, either in the lock, the pound or the bywash. CRT have put in a lot of money and effort into fixing the shrinking lock and the repairs are nearing completion.
The spiders web was covered with floating seeds.Here is my picture gallery of it.

This boat is owned by a guy called Tony, who had a long running altervcation with CTR about his boat movements. He used to spend almost all of his time on the /macclesfield canal and once a year got down to Stoke on Trent because he was logged going through Harecastle (as are all boats that use the tunnel). This was his idea of proving the he had 'travelled'. However Richard Parry, in discussion with Tony, explained that from the point of view of CTR Tony was 'on an elastic band' and was actually 'resident' on the Macclesfield. The upshot of all this was that CRT facilitated him getting a mooring.

Today's the day, proof of the pudding and all that. I think I might be the first boat through the newly refurbished lock which has been a thorn in the side of CRT for a long time. It was officially opened for the Spring Bank Holiday, which probably includes the Saturday but most people think of it as the Sunday and Mondey, so maybe I was a day early. There had been a 20 month closure, a partial reopening and then the full works to fix the problem.
Apparently the lock walls had moved inwards by a few inches, which doesn't sound much but when a boat is 7 ft wide and the lock is also 7 ft wide problems ensue. When the boat is 7ft 1in wide Imposssible.

Stalybridge is the most untidy and unkempt town I have come across. There was litter everywhere and everywhere looked worn out and tired, quite run down. I did send an email to some of the local councillors with copies to the local newspaper about my feelings about the town and why I would not be shopping here or coming back. The local reporter did get back to me but no-one else did.

Took a train to Hyde for the day