Oh no..now what do we do.

We had a slight change of plans through no fault of our own. It all started after we had been to the Salt mines  (photos on my Jameison 2 blog ) We made the Salt mines in a little under 2 hours at what I can only describe as a very pleasant cruise. Having spent a couple of hours seeing the exhibits, as well as joining a coach party for their tour round the place, (the guides suggestion) we set of once more to Anderton. Here we were going to water up and empty loos  (situation was urgent) as one cassette was full and the other very nearly so. We made the mistake of thinking there would be an elsan at Middlewich...there's not....so getting to Anderton became important. On arrival first thing was hose, tap, water followed by Ian carrying the cassette to the elsan only to return moments later still with a full cassette. Out of order notices on all the doors including the toilets. So straight onto C&RT to find out when it would reopen. We were assured that by 5pm the facilities would once more be in full use so moored just beyond the landing to wait. In the meantime we walked to Anderton lift to enquire about going down onto the river. Seems only one lift was working so availability was limited but....we could go down at 4.30pm today. Well that wasn't any use seeing as we were waiting for C&RT so tentatively took a midday slot for tomorrow.

C&RT doing towpath repairs by the facilities. They told us the bad news, no toilet emptying for the foreseeable future.

To cut a long story short we walked back to FS. Two C&RT bods were present at the facilities so Ian high tailed it over to see if it was open. The answer was NO and not likely to be in the foreseeable future. It was the pump that was at fault and not a full septic tank as assumed. An engineer had to be sent for but no one could say how long that would take.  Next facilities was either at Preston Brook or down on the Weaver. Sooo.....Ian high tailed it back to the administrators office at Anderton and asked if the 4.30pm slot was still available. With the nod that it still was, a leaflet was given to us explaining all about the Weaver with one very important point, make sure the anchor is attached to the boat!  So there you have it. We are at now on the Weaver a couple of days earlier then planned but when needs must as they say..... and our needs were most definitely a must!.

Waiting for the 4.30pm slot

Repairs to the left lift

On the pontoon below the lift.

I rather liked this pontoon and mentioned the possibility of staying over night. Ian had the unenviable task of checking to see if we had enough room in the cassette to stay and he reckoned we could last one more night if we curtailed our drinking so no beer for Ian and a small glass of wine for me!

First cygnets seen this year,

and on route

And another Sand Piper. Must be the area for them

Jay