Meeting Fellow Bloggers and Ferry Boats

One of the first bloggers we met way back at the end of March last year was Les on nb Valerie. Today we had the pleasure of catching up with him and his lovely new wife, Jacqueline. We knew they were on the Bridgewater Canal so were keeping a look out. When we saw their boat moored up at Thelwall, we were able to pull in just in front. We were banging the pegs in when Les shouted out, "the kettle is on, so when you're ready!"
We had a lovely time chatting with them both over tea. Lovely to see you both, looking so well and happy together. I didn't get a photo, but Les took one, guess we'll appear on their blog!

We moved along a bit, but wanted to stop and make a visit down to the edge of the Manchester Ship Canal, so we tied up again a little further along by the Thelwall underbridge (the Bridgewater's name for aqueduct).

walked down through the village

past the pub

down a farm lane

to a well tended garden

with a lovely old brick hut

and a Ferry Boat at the ready

the simple effects of the office

The rather worn board advertises the ferry service which runs every day between 7-9am, 12-2pm and 4-7pm with the very reasonable fee of 11p per person per trip.
The ferryman never has a day off, although he doesn't operate in bad weather, and makes on average only 2 trips a day.  He assured us he does make a living though. I'm glad he's not relying on the 11p per person per trip.

Here I'm reminded of that Marriot Edgar Poem the Runcorn Ferry, which was tuppence per person per trip. You can listen to it here read by Stanley Holloway.

Any way back to our trip,

skull at the ready

making it look easy

then the return journey

We walked on down to the locks on the MSC, where everything is on such an enormous scale, the lock chamber,

the gates

the bollards

top dog!

Saturday

Runcorn - Stockton Heath

9 miles, 0 locks

Sunday

Stockton Heath - Lymm

4 miles, 0 locks