Right on time Ray, in his distinctive blue BW shirt was on top of the lock waving us in to the highest broad-beam lock in England and we paused as we exited the lock for a celebratory photograph.
The crossing of the summit was grand, the sunshine showing off the hills to their absolute best and Ray met us at the East end of the summit to set us of on our down hill path, it should be much easier now as we would be taking a lock full of water with all the way, in fact so much so that it was washing over the top of the lock gates.
We only went down six locks, stopping just before lock 30 to visit the Gordon Rigg garden centre, but as the scenery was so splendid we stayed the rest of the day, sunbathing on some handy stone slabs and lunching with a bottle of fizz in recognition of our safe delivery over the Rochdale Summit.
In the evening we trooped down into the village of Walsden to the famous Grandma Pollard’s fish and chip shop, refreshing ourselves on the way in the snug of a convenient little canal side pub. Without doubt the fish chips and mushy peas, served to us in the open air were the best that any of us could recall eating before. We returned to SKYY with the biggest vanilla slice and custard tart you can imagine, yummie!!
1 comment:
well done, I am still hopeful that we will cross that summit next year as with the water situation as it is, and our late start (restart) this year we have decided to stay a bit further south.
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