A walk up Saddleworth Moor



We woke up to a family of Canada Geese on Saturday morning.  You can understand why they are considered vermin in some places – there seem to be so many up here and they are constantly grazing which is not going to make them best friends of many farmers.  


In the morning we had a walk around the pretty Pennine village of Dobcross:




On the way back to the boat we were rather concerned about the safety of this garage.

After lunch we set off back down eight locks to Roaches.  It was raining nearly all the afternoon and at this lock the water was flowing over the lock gate.


Sunday

We fancied a day off on Sunday as we have had some pretty challenging days recently.  There are a lot of locks on this canal and they are particularly difficult. Also we’ve had a lot of wind and rain as well as traversing the 3 ¼ mile Standedge tunnel twice.   Karen made a packed lunch and we walked to the top of Saddleworth Moor which is over 1,300 feet high.  We had some lovely views at the top including Dove Stone reservoir.  It was very windy and a bit hazy so our picture of Kinder Scout didn’t come out.


We returned by a different route and once in the Tame valley we found another disused railway line to walk along.  A nice respite after our steep climb up Saddleworth Moor.



Before we left for our walk we had hung out some washing and were relieved to see it hadn’t blown away by the time we got back.


Karen made a scrumptious coffee and walnut cake and we set out our plans for the next couple of weeks as we are going back to our house at the end of May to move Jo out of her uni halls.


We decided to get back to Stalybridge tomorrow (where we rescued two trolleys and a bike on the way up) and moor outside Tesco where we can shop for the next fortnight.  We will head to the centre of Manchester on Tuesday.  That will be a long day as we are told that the Ashton canal that heads down to Manchester is notorious with the local youth.  There are even signs saying not to stop to talk to people, not to let them on your boat and keep all the doors locked.  Such a shame that the Ashton canal has this reputation in the Droylesden area but I'm sure we'll be fine as we are pretty passive.

After the centre of Manchester we will head west on the Bridgewater canal through Stretford and Sale to join the Trent and Mersey just east of Runcorn.  We will then head south east to Anderton where we want to go down the Anderton boat l iftwhich drops the boat 50 feet to the River Weaver. We will then get back onto the Trent and Mersey canal and get to Wheelock which should be about the time we need to go back home.

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