England on the Sharp's narrow boat Hawkeye, Day 7, May 21.
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Up Early, about 6:30 AM, and had breakfast. Dot and Christy went to Old Town to mail cards and letters as well as pick up more groceries and other necessities. Finally, about 10:00 we headed out to Ellesmere Port, about three hours, nine miles and 6 locks north on the Stropshire-Union.
This Google Earth image shows the route for the day. The mooring at Telford's Warehouse in Chester is shown at the bottom right. The canal is indicated by the white arrows and the Ellesmere Port Boat Museum is at the top left. Note that this image has been rotated to increase the viewable area, therefore, the north-south line would be, roughly, from the Boat Museum to Chester.
As soon as we had gotten underway, here they came . . . . This family looks older than the earlier ones - or maybe it's just that we've been here a week now! Gee how time flies when you're having fun.
The Hawthornes are now starting to look pink. I first thought it was just a different variety but all of them were pink. We finally decided it was an aging phenomenon. We have been here for seven days - that's a fairly long time in the life of a blossom. We couldn't identify the tree/shrub on the right but it was attractive.
More Hawthornes. I think I liked the white stage better but the pink is pretty too.
The directional signing around Ellesmere Port is interesting. They use sculptures of this sort to carry the signs.
The Ellesmere Port reception committee.
Left, the mandatory duck (grin). The duck family in the center image are really living dangerously. The nest with eggs they are resting on appears to belong to a goose or swan. If Mom comes home . . . The bird in the right image is a wood pigeon. We saw many of these along the canal but they usually flew away as we approached. This one was actually photographed from some distance.
More Sculptures and signing. Note that we're now getting directions to the Boat Museum, not just Ellesmere Port.
Still more sculptures. The first one is interesting. The images and print on the paddles appear to be childrens' drawings and writing so it must be part of a different series.
On arriving at the Boat Museum and Basin, we first stopped at the Snack Bar to fill the water tank. We then moved through the two locks into the lower basin, mooring on the little quay across from the Holiday Inn. We settled in and had lunch, then decided we'd walk over to the Holiday Inn to patronize their pub to justify using their wifi to check e-mail. To get to the Holiday Inn, which was only about 30 feet away from us across the water, we had to walk to the lower (in the Google Earth image) end of the quay, across the footbridge to the adjacent quay, to the upper end of that one, then over another foot bridge to the mainland. We then walked along the water up to the upper end of the parallel locks, across the locks and around (or through if it's open) the Snack Bar/Gift Shop, along the road to the bridge at the upper end of the Holiday Inn, over the bridge and into the hotel. Along the way, we stopped at Jabula, an African restaurant that Frank and Christy remembered as being good. We made reservations for the next evening, then proceeded to the Holiday Inn. After a relaxing intermission in the pub, we returned to Hawkeye, watched a great TV show on Scotland then turned in. Tomorrow we do the Boat Museum.
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England on the Sharp's narrow boat Hawkeye, Day 7, May 21.