Castlefield to Dunham Massey

With our cinema tickets we got vouchers for 50% off our next visit if it was within the next couple of weeks. Dunkirk took our fancy, but with only one showing today at 6.30pm we decided not to bother. We could stay another day but just for the sake of saving £5 and spending £5! So after a slow start we pushed off and made our way out of Manchester.

As we turned out of the basin a Waxi (Water Taxi) was just setting off from it’s mooring at the bottom of Lock 92. He waited for us to pass the trip boats and a boat heading into the basin before we waved him past. Suspect he would have passed us anyway seeing the size of his outboard. Within a minute he was out of sight and heading to the Trafford Centre. They run a service seven days a week between Castlefield, Trafford Centre and Sale along with a service to Media City in Salford across the quays. At £8 a single it’s not cheap.

At Waters Meeting we turned left continuing our journey southwards. This is familiar water to us. At the Linotype Works the development is starting to grow. I wonder what it’ll look like the next time we pass, will it be similar to the W N Nicholson facades in Newark that stand supported by modern buildings behind? Not sure when we’ll be passing this way next, maybe not till late next year, so the site will have changed a lot by then.

We stopped on the embankment overlooking Dunham Massey to let Tilly have free reign for the afternoon. As soon as green was visible from the cabin windows she was chomping  to be out, at least it would save her chomping the curtains! This is now the third time we’ve moored here and on Sundays there are a lot of walkers and cyclists. As we pulled up a young lady asked if Oleanna was like a house, only with very small doors. She then went on to say that here was very isolated. With the amount of footfall here it certainly doesn’t feel like it, although by late afternoon they had all headed back home and left the views to us and the embankment to Tilly.

0 locks, 10.5 miles, 2 lefts, 1 waxi, 1 parcel ready to send, 1 London Leckenby catch up, 1st knitted sock, 1st heel turned, 4 hours of pouncing on a slope, 8 cumberland sausages from Glasson, 3 2 full tummies.