Parbold and the post office going nowhere fast

Wednesday 9th July 2008


We left Crooke at 0900 and tied up at Parbold at about 1100.


On a walk round the village we spotted the stationary post office.


And later, at Stockton Heath, there was a handbag shop with a wandering apostrophe.

Welcome to Lancashire!

Wednesday 9th July 2008

The previous night we moored at Crooke at 2015. We walked round the village and had a drink in the busy pub. Had a good ale, but I can't quite remember the name: something like H... Goodenough. Internet searching hasn't helped. Had we really been in Greater Manchester all this time? This must be Appley Bridge 42 with its peeling red rose.

Two big buildings

The first we encountered by Pagefield Lock, Wigan. It's the JJB Stadium, home of Wigan Athletic Football Club and Wigan Warriors Rugby League Football Club


Half an hour further on was the huge Heinz factory at Kitt Green. H J Heinz started canning baked beans in Wigan in 1948. It's been at the Kitt Green site since 1958.

a Wigan Pier experience

Not long after dieseling up we passed this interesting group of young people.


I asked them to wave at the camera: they responded by dangling one of their number over the water.


Opposite was what is reputed to be the original Wigan Pier: a tippler for emptying the contents of coal trucks into boats.

Ambush in Wigan

And so to Wigan, where we put a round hundred pounds worth of diesel in the tank. We just caught Derek before he closed for the day.

Good pub food at the Dover Lock Inn

As mentioned in the last post, we had tied up at the Dover Lock Inn by bridge 4 on the Leigh branch of the L&L. The liver and onions was very good, and well worth £5.95. Bob, the landlord, keeps good ales, too. We stopped here on the way back and enjoyed more of the same. The pub is full of canalia: Buckby cans, brassware, tunnel lights, etc.

Unofficial dredger gets in scrap with BW and EA

Tuesday 8th July 2008

Worsley to Dover Lock Inn for lunch

it rained

After the fun and games replacing the split charge relay at Bridgewater Marina we carried on to the end of the Bridgewater Canal at Leigh. We watered up, and continued on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal (Leigh Branch) to Dover Locks. Here used to be two locks before they were "moved" to Wigan to counter mining subsidence.


As we approached Dover Bridge we saw a man repeatedly casting a grappling iron into the bridge hole. He stopped to let us pass, and we saw on the bank what he'd been dragging out: an astonishing pile of old bicycles. We tied up just after the bridge by the Dover Lock Inn and ordered food. While that was being prepared I went back to talk to the man, who told me that he was removing the scrap in order to sell it. What he was doing isn't sanctioned by BW: indeed it is strongly discouraged, despite his claim that he was doing BW a favour, as it didn't do any dredging any more. He was working his way up the canal, putting his haul in his van as he went. The Environment Agency also frowns on his activities: apparently resting the bikes on the bank before putting them in his van is littering. He told me that his record for one bridge was 40 bikes. Forty? How do forty bikes chucked in at random not form a mountain above water level?


He's pulled at least six bikes from one side of this bridgehole, so I suppose it's just possible. He gets £200 for each van load of dredged scrap.

Earthrace

It looks like something out of a James Bond film. And I was sent to film it in Lowestoft, Suffolk, this afternoon.


This outlandish-looking boat is Earthrace, a powerboat which has beaten the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe. It did the trip in a shade under 61 days, beating the previous record by a couple of weeks, apparently. The skipper was an engaging Kiwi - I could just run the interview - but I'd have to cut out a few swear words!

The boat is not much longer than a narrowboat at 78 feet, but has a 24 feet beam. In the 61 days it took the crew of four to do the 25,000 miles they changed the engine oil just six times! (Well, it didn't seem like much to me!)