Rowkin Rovings Blog

19 August 2016

Awoke to absolutely dismal weather with rain and wind. Also woke to a dog that was very flat and causing concern. Mapes had not eaten for 36 hours and drunk very little water. She had also attempted to go to the toilet and was passing blood so it was a trip to the vet. We were quite lucky as there was a vet only a kilometer away but had to walk in the pouring rain. Once again we lucked out with a great vet.

His diagnosis was gastroenteritis which he said was not uncommon to see in cats and dogs that visited the Ellesmere region. An injection of an antiemtic, antibiotic and lots of rest. A big relief to her humans but not quite out of the woods yet. Need to keep a close eye on her and see how she progresses over the next 24 hours.

We skipped back to the boat in the still inclement weather and settled her onto a comfly chair whilst we took Toque and went and visited the museum. For us it was quite a buzz. Some great canal history and learnt even more about the workings of the system and the people on it. We were fortunate enough to meet the historian associated with the museum who gave us a bit of further information though once again another eccentric Englishman. One of the people not able to give you a straight answer without digressing through six different scenarios. Entertaining all the same.

Now many of you reading this blog are not going to be interested in the collection of pictures below but am afraid you just have to bear with us.

Ellesmere Port is right on the Manchester Canal and you can go from the Chester Canal onto the Manchester Canal and play with the big boys by appointment. Right next to the Manchester Canal is the River Mersey and on the other side you can see Liverpool City. So it has taken us 19 days to navigate around the Mersey Estuary.

This photo is of where the Chester Canal comes into the Manchester canal and you can just see a big boy being unloaded in the distance.

The next group of photos are of some of the wooden canal boats dating back many years.

These boats here are all old merchant boats that would have carried anything from coal to pottery.

Friendship use to be owned by a couple who lived on her for 40 years and it was only when their 40 year old donkey passed away in the 1950’s did they give it up and moved onto the land.

Typical mile post in this area. As you can see, we are only 9 miles from Chester or four hours cruising.

A view of the museum which has everything from old boats to a hall with the different types of boat engines to a mock up of stables for the horses, blacksmith shop, great archive library, mock up of street scene from the 1800’s and the list goes on.

It was pretty cool being part of a working museum for a day. Nb Lucy fitted in just perfectly and looked the part. We were the only ones in the museum today so we attracted quite the crowd when we left about 4.00pm to head back to Chester. This photo is of the locks that take you down into the basin before then heading out onto the Manchester Canal through one more sea lock.

Heading back out of the museum in the early evening we passed by the moored up Dutch barge that had the mattress wrapped around his prop yesterday. Had one of those passing conversations where he told us that he had lost his propeller. He was waiting for the local dive club to come by and see if they can find it. Felt really sorry for the guy as this was not going to be a cheap solution even if he does find his propeller. Meantime we had checked our prop and found a dog lead with a large clip on the end of it wrapped around our prop. We had noticed over the last couple of days that we could hear this metallic click when we put nb Lucy in reverse and we just thought it was one of the new drive belts settling in but obviously we were very wrong. Took Fras 15 minutes to finally get it all cut off from the prop.

Cruised for about two hours and have pulled up in the countryside for a quiet night.