Boatdate: 11092019
Location: Nr Crooke Marina
Canal: Leeds Liverpool
Heading: NW
Distance Remaining: 46 miles
Weather: Not bad all things considered.

Day off here tinkering on the boat and getting acquainted with the River Douglas just a few meters away. At this point it looks tame enough but in four days time I might change my opinion on that, it being the first leg of the Millenium Ribble Link which joins the Lancaster canal up to the main canal network via the rivers Douglas and Ribble and Savick Brook. Until its opening in 2002, (first bit of canal construction in 100yrs!), Lancaster was an isolated stretch of canal as it was never completed. The original idea was a canal linking Westhaughton in Lancashire to Kendal in Cumbria, but they never finished the aqueduct crossing of the Ribble to the south, and then, to add insult to injury, at the northern end, they fucked it all up by throttling the canal building the M6 motorway on its neck. Bastards!

Anyway, the Link cost £6.54 million pounds and costs a small fortune in dredging and other maintenance costs to keep open for the 200 or so boats that use it every year. I hope it stays open, but you never know these days.

After my lazy and mucky day, (I cleaned bilge pumps), I will push on to Appely Bridge to pick up 1st mate who is rejoining Pan 91 tomorrow for the final push up the Rufford branch of the Leeds Liverpool to Tarleton and the start of the Ribble link. EEK!