Gathurst

After returning to Crankwood from Worsley we made our way to Wigan yesterday and to Gathurst today. Last night we dined at the always excellent Franco's, this morning we had a lie in listening to the rain drumming on the roof - one of our favourite bedroom activities 😎.
But enough of that, what about the weather? Yesterday it was shorts, t-shirt and one and a half pairs of flip flops in the sunshine (you need the extra flip flop to splatter the horse flies!), whereas today it was torrential in the morning and only partially brightened up this afternoon. So we waited until just after noon then cast off, only one pair of flip flops required.
Today's trip involved three locks and the task was shared with this old workhorse.

Having just attended the Lymm Festival the owners of Dove were heading for Liverpool. As we chatted in the locks I discovered that she was built in 1925 and the owner restored her from a wreck six years ago. The original engine was binned - and quite rightly so in my opinion. It had to be started by heating the engine block with a blowtorch then kicking over the flywheel. With no gearbox, the way to "select" reverse was to kick the flywheel in the opposite direction! Instead, he installed this 1948 twin cylinder diesel.

And boy could it shift! They left us for dead as they charged from lock to lock.

Off he goes!

By the time we got to each of the next two locks they were already there, waiting with the gate open. Poor Lottie's tongue was hanging out as we tried to keep up!

After Ell Meadow lock we eased off and crawled through Crooke as they tore on towards Dean lock. Soon enough we got to Gathurst and were surprised to be the only boat here. We'll stay the rest of the week as we slowly head back to Scarisbrick Marina. Lottie is being left there when we head to France next month.