Today was wet, by 2pm my boots and socks were soggy and my trousers wet through. This is why we go abroad, I blame Boris Johnson, he told us to have a staycation!
In the morning we visited the Anderton Boat lift, an amazing machine which has two tanks of water each of which can take two boats. Once the boats have entered the tanks the doors behind are shut and the whole tank can be lowered or raised the 50ft. The banner above shows the tank dropping down, it takes about 5 minutes to do the whole journey.
Initially (in 1875) a hydraulic system used the weight of the tank going down to raise the one coming up. Since 1904 it has been electrically operated with counter balance weights so the tanks can be operated independently.
The machine was in use for 100 years and then became a little derelict. In the 80's the whole thing was restored and is now one of the highlights of the British canal system.
We had thought we would be going through the lift as the Canal Plan schedule included it, a few days ago we looked a little closer and noticed the schedule had us going down and then back up again just for the fun of it. As it was pissing with rain we settled for just watching two other boats go down.
We are now in Middlewich having had a nice late lunch to warm ourselves up. Later we will try an Italian restaurant which is highly recommended. For the next few days we are very much out in the country so we could well be cooking and eating on board so we are making the most of this civilization whilst it lasts.
Six months ago we bought Sue Wincent-Dodd's book about her family history featuring, for the most part, her brother David who was a Bishop's Castle character. Can anyone reading this remember (or can look up in the book) where Sue's ancestors had their salt business, we think it was around here. If you know please email us, we have passed a number of salt mines today and we are annoyed that neither of us can remember.