Malkins Bank

Today's temperature reached the giddy high of 10°C! It was dry with only a light breeze and we felt a sense of relief to be able to cruise in such clement conditions. The journey began at Wheelock Wharf where we emptied our toilet, bins and filled with water before beginning the Wheelock flight; part of a longer run of 26 locks over the next 7 miles known as Heartbreak Hill.

Vicky was weak so Will took Tiger ashore and worked all the locks. This section is unusual because each lock is twinned with another, sitting side by side, in order to speed the passage of boats at busy times.

The latter part of our journey took us alongside the Malkins Bank golf course, built on the site of the old Brunner Mond sodium carbonate works. Small cottages, originally built for short haul boaters and employees of the chemical works added interest to our cruise.

We ascended six locks before mooring between numbers 61 and 60. The flat fields around us were divided up into smaller plots by white prodigious amounts of white electrical tape to provide grazing for ponies. The birds were getting busy courting and beginning to build nests in the hedges and there was a distant thrum of white noise from a flyover of the M6 motorway.Read more