Littleborough

Friday 04 July 2014 – Littleborough, Rochdale Canal

Much better cruising – we started at 07:00 and had three locks in quick succession, once we above them the water was clear and free of rubbish.  A mile later there were the five Slattock locks which are close together.  We then pass through industrial scenery and go under the A627M by way of a new ‘conduit’ and tunnel at the end of which we met a youth canoe club.  All the ‘sight lines’ are short, the bends sharp and the way narrow so interesting but fortunately no boats coming the other way.

The next bit of interest is that locks 50 and 49 each have one of the paddles locked – there are no signs saying that BW or C&RT have done it so I called it in, while I was on the phone one of the locals advised that “it’s knackered and been like that for twenty years, and they ain’t gonna take the locks off cos the bits are broken and drop in the canal”.  From the way he was talking I understood ‘they’ did not refer to other locals but C&RT.  He also kindly explained to this southerner that knackered meant it was broken which I thought was helpful! That should’ve left us with just a run to Littleborough, however, both Graham and I had missed there were two swing bridges, the first needed a BW key the second needed a ‘handcuff’ key.  As all the canal ‘hardware’ is different it would appear that when reclaiming the canal stuff was got from other canals.

When we arrived at Littleborough there was another group of canoeists under instruction so once we’d got past we breasted up and as soon as they came off the water I have moved back into where they were.

The day started cloudy with wind but it has settled in to rain.