The Bosley Flight and more

We started the upward journey on the Bosley flight yesterday morning, leaving The Cloud (and the clouds) behind us

We made excellent speed up the flight of 12 with Elaine, as usual, doing virtually all of the work. These locks have a pair of gates at both ends but only have a crossing point at one end, meaning Elaine had to walk the length of the lock a couple of times to close the gates as I exited. I closed the sluice and opened the gate on my side when we had filled a lock, but it was meagre assistance when you consider Elaine had to move gates a total of 7 times plus operate sluices or gates up to 7 times on all 12 locks (I did manage to nudge the gates open with Lottie's bow on 2 occasions, actually).

Bottom

Middle(ish)

Top

As I said, we had no problems for the most part but there were more than a couple of gate paddles that were extremely stiff. To make matters worse, when I tried to go to help I found I couldn't get Lottie to the bank as we kept grounding in the shallow pounds.
The final pound between locks 1 & 2 was extremely shallow - and I mean virtually empty! I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise since, after lock 12 we never saw another boat coming down until we left lock 2, meaning we had drained 11 locks on the way up with no-one moving in the opposite direction and bringing water down with them.

If only these were still in use!

Irritatingly, this flight was built with a system of side ponds into which you could drain half of the lock contents, saving a huge amount of water. Perhaps feeling we amateur boaters weren't up to it, this system has been discarded by the authorities, meaning the flight now uses twice so as much water as it should - madness!
At the top of the flight we were a heady 518ft above sea level. For comparison, the Bridgewater is at 80ft. The initial stretches were a little scruffy if truth be told. Narrow, overgrown and with lines of shabby looking boats clinging to the bank in places. Soon, however, things improved with beautiful wooded stretches which we enjoyed for the most part in solitude

As we got ever closer to Macclesfield the views opened up to reveal the hillsides in all their glory

We tied up at Gurnett Aqueduct but it wasn't straitforward due to the pitch of the rings and being unable to knock a pin through the concrete. Still, we managed, then walked 2 miles to do a Tesco big shop with a taxi ride back. Add another short walk to the Sutton Hall for a pint and we were done for the day, totally worn out!