Opened in 1894, the Manchester Ship Canal was one of the last major canals to be constructed in Victorian England. It stretches for 36 miles from the centre of Manchester to Eastham, on the southern shore of the Mersey River estuary 6 miles from Liverpool. The plan was to transverse this waterway in a fair-sized tour boat. A trip of some six hours. But let's go back to the beginning.
We booked this trip with Bakers Dolphin Coach Line, a fairly sizable coach travel company in this part of England. We had to be near Bristol Centre at 7:30AM for pickup by a Yellow Cab to be taken to Gordano to meet our bus. You may remember that this is the same collection and departure point used in our trip to Paris (but a different company). Manchester is in the same general direction as B&P's Southwell house, so the first part of the journey we expected to be a snooze - at least as far a Birmingham.
The driver told us there were two more passengers to be picked up at Stroud (wherever that is) so it didn't surprise us we were traveling on secondary roads. After Stroud, I went back to my puzzle and became a little irritated because the road had so many curves that I was having trouble filling in the blank spaces. When the driver announced we would be making a brief stop at Ross-On-Wye and suggested visiting the market in town, we pulled out the map to find we were well off the M5 freeway and heading towards Wales. At this point Nancy pulled out the trip itinerary and re-read the flyer. We had indeed signed up for a "scenic route via Hereford, Shrewsburg and the Welsh Marches" - Oh! - or as Gilda Ratner said "never mind." For more on the Welsh Marches than you'll ever want to know go to http://www.castlewales.com/march.html
I'm not sure if we had known what we were signing up for, it would have changed anything. The surprise was a very nice drive through some very delightful backroads. The only downside to this little excursion was the weather had turned quite warm and muggy and the air conditioner wasn't working all that well. In fact, the condenser was pulling water from the air at an amazing rate and dripping water onto a pair of seats at the middle of the bus. I thought the bus was full - but they were able to abandon those two seats.
The trip north was quite leisurely and we made several stops along the way. We stopped at Ross-on-Wye for a little walk around, Shrewsbury for lunch (the town was having its annual parade - we didn?t stay for the parade), another quick stop and then a huge plant nursery. The nursery was as large as any I've ever seen and included a substantial tearoom. It was a choice of plants or tea and we chose tea. We're finding out in traveling how dehydrated we become and we are pushing liquid into us as fast as practical.
The north end of our journey found us in Cheshire County, the birthplace of Lewis B. Carroll. We kept searching the trees for the cats, but found none; maybe they are nocturnal.
We arrived at the hotel about 7:00PM. So, it made for a long day. Dinner had been pre-arranged by the hotel and was not particularly memorable.
Sunday morning, breakfast was at 8:00AM. The options at the buffet were wide enough that no one went away hungry. After breakfast, we packed out and were on the bus by 8:45. After a short drive to the Saltford Quay near the center of Manchester, we and several other tour groups boarded our ship for the day, the "Snowdrop."
The speed of the cruise ship was, in many places, ten knots. A boat that size throws one heck of a wake, especially in a narrow channel. The one thing that you don't see in open water is the drop in the water ahead of the bow wave. The wave really banged into the canal sidewalls. It was mesmerizing to watch.
The industry along the canal was very light on the Manchester end - most of the docks were being converted to high-rise apartments. But near the Liverpool end there were several oil refineries and some coal fired power stations - the local coal as too much sulfur and can't be used. The coal for the power plants was being imported from Columbia. Maybe they are bringing coal to Newcastle.
The last lock connected us with the estuary of the River Mersey. The captain complained a little about the draft of his ship, but assured us that the tide was high enough for our purposes. He explained the big shipping boats could only use the river for the two highest hours of a tide. From the last lock, Liverpool was about six miles. The River Mersey had a fair number of pleasure boats - some out sailing and many at anchor.
The tour bus was waiting at the Liverpool dock and all were ready for the trip home. The trip was quiet and uneventful, down the M6 and the M5 to Gordano and a taxi home.
We did meet some very nice people on this trip. We've had offers to go with some of these people to see other sights we can't get to by bus and offers to "come to our area and stay with us and we'll show you around."
Our "Grand Adventure" continues....