Weaver Trip Day 10 - Last day on the river

Today would be our last day on the river for tomorrow we ascend the Anderton Lift and rejoin the Trent and Mersey and everyone else on the four counties circuit.

This morning we were invited onto Oakapple for coffee before we left so I fired up AmyJo's engine to charge up the batteries and we went to say our fairwells.

An hour later and agreeing to catch up again one day we left just as Linda on nb Kanbedun Again came to say goodbye.  It was lovely to have a leaving party to see us off and a little sad as we have thoroughly enjoyed their company over the last few days.  Look forward to seeing you all again some day.

Linda (left), Richard and Sharon come to see us off.

The last we saw of our mooring before turning the corner

At Vale Royal lock the two lock keepers were especially cheerful today and were interested in whether we had enjoyed or stay, which of course, we did immensely.  They chatted all the while we were in the lift.

Ready to receive us and the two cheerful Lock keepers

Who you looking at....

 In one of the boat yards we spied these two old fire engines.  One hopes they are not the yards fire fighting equipment as we could not see them being much use

This stretch of river between Vale Royal and Hunts Lock downstream has several boat building yards along the banks.  One is Yarwoods who for years built many narrowboats and Brunners (they were the successors of the original Weaver steam packets and were sometimes known as ‘Brunners’ from the salt and chemical company ‘Brunner Mond’).

From 1920 W J Yarwood & Sons built barges & coasters and gave them local names like Hatchmere, Pickmere and Redesmere. These traded along the Weaver, Mersey & the west coast. In 1934 the company made the headlines when they undertook the construction of an aircraft supply vessel, 'Aquarius', under the supervision of Aircraftman Shaw, aka 'Lawrence of Arabia'

We last saw Abbott at the Northwich festival 4 years ago when Jo and Keith on Hadar were here.

After a brief stop in Northwich for water we finally moored up just round the corner from the Anderton lift. We then walked up to the exhibition centre had some lunch and then booked our slot to go up the lift tomorrow,.

Moored up at Carey Park moorings

 After I mentioned our battery problem in our last post Tom from Waiouru suggested I should remove the dead battery before it kills the others.  I discussed this with Fernwoods and then set about disconnecting them all.  Not a definitive test by any means but all I had to hand was an Avo meter.  I checked each one with the meter hoping the culprit would give a lower voltage reading than the others.  Unfortunately they all gave 12.92volt values which would seem to indicate they were all OK.  Tom would agree that this should be done as a drop test putting each individual battery under load but I cannot do that here so that will have to wait until we get back to Tattenhall.

One bank of 6 batteries wired for 24 volts

So far with careful use of the lights etc we have managed to maintain a reasonable charge so settled down to watch a lovely sunset over the lift tonight.

Our view from AmyJo of the lift this afternoon

The setting sun lights up the trees.

Our moorings seen from along the tow path

My favourite picture so far - the Anderton lift basks in the sunset.

Tomorrow we have company joining us for the ride up the Lift.  One of Chris's work mates is bringing her two young boys along to enjoy the lift as they have always wanted to have a go on it.  I'd better break out the pirates flag me thinks.