Final stretch to Christleton

We’d estimated another three hours boating from the Shady Oak to Christleton and wanted to arrive at around ten, so we got going just after seven, or rather Sheila did whilst I ate breakfast. She’d rather drawn the short straw again for her day to steer, as it rained fairly steadily for much of the time. Clad in her rain suit, they weren't impossible conditions, just soggy. I fear the forecast for the next couple of weeks looks to be much the same as we’ve been having for the last few days – occasional spells of bright and warm weather interspersed with varying amounts of rain.

A chunk of the trip was spent plodding past what must now be around two miles worth of offline mooring at Golden Nook farm. It’s always hard to remember over the gaps of four or five years at a time, but we’re sure that there are more boats there every time, making a nonsense of the CRT plan to reduce online moorings.

Despite all that, we made good time. It seems likely that this stretch has been dredged recently as Sanity Again was charging along at over 3.5 mph when it was possible to open the throttle to 1200 rpm. As a result, we arrived just after half nine, having only just finished the wash load. Since we had a good bit of time in hand, and as the rain seemed mostly to have cleared away, we decided to have an early coffee then walk down into Chester, shop at the new Waitrose and get a sandwich lunch there, then mooch about Chester for a bit before taking a bus back.

Mostly, this went to plan. The new Waitrose is very handy, towpath side with dedicated shopping moorings not long after the last lock, Hoole Lane. We’d checked the numbers of the buses to catch back and only had to find a stop in town at which to catch one. Sadly, Chester doesn't do much in the way of helpful maps in the centre to assist with this process. There are quite a few fancy map displays, but they are all concerned with the various cycle routes around the place.

We finally found a more general one and, with the aid of that and some advice from a council staff person we spotted in the street, finally got to what Chester rather grandiloquently calls the Chester Bus Interchange or CBI, what the rest of us would usually refer to as a bus station. The 41, 41A and C56 all leave from Stand C there (this year at least) and make their way out of town along the A41 that passes the Jolly Trooper Harvester pub where you can hop off and access the towpath.

CRT are doing a bit of towpath improvement near there, right opposite the winding hole we plan to use tomorrow. We’ll just have to hope that the workboats tied to the towpath alongside don’t stop us from getting 70’ round…

Location:Christleton

Into Chester and back

Before mentioning today's exploits, I must fill in a lacuna from yesterday's account. This was that on the way to Christleton, we crossed with Cherokee, whose steerer is a blog follower; it's always good to meet, even briefly, one of those who otherwise are just known as stats on the hit counter!

I hope you had a good cruise yesterday and today.

As planned, we ourselves went down into Chester on foot today. I took the Garmin, so can tell you that it was  2.7 miles, and it took us about 45 minutes to reach the start of the shops. We'd already found out online that we could get a bus back from Stand F in Foregate Street, so knew that we could avoid the slog back uphill if we wanted to.

Main targets of the trip were Lakeland and Tesco. Lakeland is on the first floor of the Rows in Eastgate Street, and we got there at 9.15. This was a bit of a problem, as they don't open until 9.30 on a Tuesday. We filled the time in by going to see if the Julian Graves store was still there, but it wasn't. Julian Graves used to be a really good source of basic dried goods like fruit and nuts, traditional sweets and the like, but they were taken over by Holland and Barrett, and have been being closed down steadily every since.

H&B, meanwhile, are American owned, and we dislike them intensely, a source of expensive varieties of stuff you almost certainly don't need like vitamin supplements at silly prices and protein drinks.

Heigh ho, that's the free market for you, I guess.

Anyway, by the time we'd found the closed up Julian Graves, with sad messages from the former sales staff on the door, and then wandered about a bit, Lakeland was open and we could buy some boxes of EasiYo sachets and some food labels.

On then to Tesco, where we bought basic perishables, hopefully enough to see us through to Middlewich next weekend. Round to the bus stop and a quarter hour wait, then quickly back to Christleton.

Our mooring there was OK, but very overshadowed by the trees, resulting in bird poo over the roof and not much contribution from the solar panel. So we had an early lunch, then winded the boat at the winding hole before Christleton Lock, and pottered back just a little way towards Eggbridge.

We've tied on a rather shallow towpath mooring, with the stern sticking well out, but we're in the sun, it's very peaceful and we'll be able to make a flying start in the morning, having got all the turning round stuff done already.