FreeSpirit : Crikey, was it on fire?

Tuesday 8 October 2019

Crikey, was it on fire?

Monday 7th Oct

Mission accomplished. A walk in drizzly conditions of 25 minutes to get to the Enterprise car rental depot at Northwich, and then a 35 mile, 40-minute drive via three motorways to get to Bolton. And for what? It was all because we had successfully bid on eBay for a Snipe 2 automatic satellite antenna to put on the motorhome to replace the Omni aerial and also for Ian's sanity. Maybe now I won't be moaning about the lack of TV signal whenever we stop.


Turns out this Snipe has twin aerial sockets. It means I can record one program and watch another. Bonus!

Taking advantage of having a car for the day, we shopped and treated ourselves to a Wetherspoons. Of course, the rain started just as we were ready for the walk back to FS after parking the car near the bridge. I'm glad I took the shopping trolly as it became a handy sackbarrow to carry the satellite antenna, it was that blooming heavy! Thankfully after Ian returned the car he got a lift back to the bridge from one of the Enterprise staff.

Left the mooring by mid-afternoon and was very glad to do so. It was a horrible mooring what with the extremely muddy towpath, overhanging trees, the constant dripping from those leaves on the cabin top which made two very irritable and tired people due to lack of sleep. No doubt at any other time of the year it would have been the ideal mooring spot, especially under a shade of the tree. It has been marked on the Nicholsons now in a big X never to darken that mooring again.

Mud, mud glorious mud.

Had a decent journey to Anderton. Stopped by the facilities first and had the best shower ever. Really hot water with plenty of pressure, and oh..the sheer luxury of allowing the water to run for as long as you like. On the way to wind by the Anderton lift, a boat passed us with a very obvious problem. Blooming 'eck...that looked bad! We winded and stopped in front of that boat and Ian then went to see if he could help A very embarrassed chap said that having left Anderton Marina for a pump out, he decided to head for the lift, wind and then head back to the Marina but had not checked if the engines water levels were okay. Consequently what we saw was steam. After 10 minutes he had refilled the coolent system with several jugs of water and limped back to the Marina to see if any damage had been done.

Not smoke but steam

Winding hole by the Anderton Lift.

Our initial plan was to descend on the Anderton Lift and spend a week on the River Weaver but the amount of rain, with more to come later, rather put me off. I didn't fancy being on a river in case it went into flood so the revised plan was to head back to Stoke and possibly take a cruise along the Caldon. We did, however, walk back to the river to see what the flow was like.