Hold up at Canal Street.

9 Locks, 1½ Miles. Now moored at Grocers Warehouse.

Lock 84 Rochdale Nine.

We all opted for an early start this morning to get through the Rochdale Nine ASAP to allow time for some shopping at Castlefield. Once again Richard volunteered his services to assist us which was very much appreciated.

This mural was new since our first visit despite the date.

Everything was going well until we reached lock 87 where we found a police cordon around the lock. Richard being the only man ashore at this point spoke to the constable on duty and was told that he couldn’t let us through until CID and Forensic had examined the scene of a serious assault overnight. Nothing for it but to moor up alongside the floating bar and wait.

Richard using the old boatman's route from one lock to the next.

We had been told BW had been informed and it was about an hour or so before a BW representative did grace us with his presence. Apparently he had locked off the flight but not before we had started our descent. He realised that we had beaten him through lock 84 but his main concern was to lock off lock 92 before a handful of boats in that area tried to ascend the flight. After a two hour delay we finally got underway again but not before water levels in the flight had risen . With some locks only having one working paddle on the lower end and water flowing over the top gates it took a long time for the water level to equalise and a bit of extra muscle power to open the gates.

After our delay at lock 87 the water levels had risen to the extent of having excess water.

We eventually emerged from the bottom lock with quite a large crowd of gongoozlers taking note of our progress.By this time the boats that had been waiting to ascend the flight had all given up waiting and presumably gone off somewhere to moor up because we saw no sign of them.

Lloyds Bank Building in Manchester.

Oh dear, is it that time already? Christmas decorations with a difference.

1964 locks, 3811½ miles, 72 tunnels, 129 swing bridges and 54 lift bridges since Nov 2006