Rode Heath

Well, we did arrive at Middlewich on Sunday as planned and took up a splendid mooring, great phone and router signals, the works. So, why no blog I hear you ask? Because, after shopping at the local Tesco I suggested we go for a Sunday afternoon pint and this somehow developed into a 5 pub crawl followed by an Indian at Blue Ginger (excellent by the way). Naturally, I forgot all about keeping you informed of our progress until the next day and, of course, couldn't get a signal when we moved on.
Having checked the weather we decided Monday was going to be a better day for moving than Tuesday, when we would have to leave our 48hr mooring. So we set off for somewhere around Ettily Heath with the intention of stopping just as soon as the canal diverged from the busy A533 to Sandbach. It's quite a dreary run as you hug the road, going past various businesses including British Salt, where I took a quick snap

How many chips would that lot do?

After the 6th and last lock of the day we looked around for a place to stop but found the towpath badly overgrown

It was like this for 2 miles, all the way into Wheelock which was further than we wanted to go. Wheelock is a canal service station so we filled with water and emptied all cassettes before eventually finding a mooring spot just below the first of the 26 locks that make up Heartbreak Hill.
We had a nosey around Wheelock this morning and it is a good stopping off point for canal dwellers. Apart from the services there's a pub, chippy, Indian restaurant and a very appealing canal side Italian
restaurant called Barchetta that we will try on the way back.
This morning we awoke to glorious sunshine, nothing like the forecasted rain. We did get some later, in fact a really heavy if short lived downpour, but I was safely tucked under the M6 just south of Sandbach Services when the heavens opened so happy days (for me, if not Elaine!)

Elaine in pink, about to get soaked!

So, 14 locks later we are tied up at Rode Heath with 12 more locks to do before we turn off the Trent & Mersey onto the Macclesfield canal. Elaine forestalled my suggestion of an evening walk, having worked out that she's done over 4 miles already today. Given that tomorrow's locks are all in the space of a couple of miles plus I badly need the exercise I felt that she should have been a little less selfish (joke!) but in the interest of harmony I'll forego my walk with my usual dignified demeanour...