Congleton to the bottom of Bosley Locks.

Travelled 4.25 miles, in a time of 1 hour 55 minutes.

We left our Congleton mooring at 9.05am with no need for an early start.

We crossed over Dog Lane Aqueduct, which has the main road into Congleton running under it and where we walked down into the town yesterday.

The sun was shining as we moved along a high embankment, which is a common feature on the Macclesfield Canal. We had a fabulous view of the stunning railway viaduct.

All's we need was a steam train to trundle across it.

In the distance shrouded by mist was the fell known as The Cloud, it is over 1000ft tall and on the top their are remains of an old earthworks. You can walk up to the top of the The cloud, from bridge 71, that will be something for another time, but definitely a walk I would love to take.

As we approached bridge 68 Buxton Road Bridge, Keith stepped off the boat and walked to bridge 66 Town Field Bridge, leaving me in charge of the tiller, which I really enjoyed.

Just after bridge 64 Pearson's Bridge, Keith who was now back in charge of the tiller announced he had no gears and asked me to check in the engine room to see if anything had come unbolted, which it had, so we pulled into the side, I did a leap of faith with the centre line, because we were about three foot from the bank, whilst Keith turned the engine off and fixed the problem. Whilst I stood and waited for Keith to repair the problem, a Buzzard flew over head and a squirrel rain along the hedgerow behind me grunting as it went on its way, just like a little old man, who had lost something important. Maybe it was worried the Buzzard would get it. After about 10 minutes Keith had sorted the problem and we were ready for the off, so I did another leap of faith back onto the boat and away we went.

There is such stunning scenery up here, even the bridges are pretty in their own way.

Ahead of us in the distance was a BT relay tower standing proudly on the Pennines. We crossed Dane Aqueduct, with the River Dane below and moored up below Bosley Locks, there was only one boat moored up, which meant one thing there was no sign of the lock stoppage which was due to finish tomorrow, whether they finished early or it never happened, we will never know. We could of carried on up the flight, but decided to stop anyway as we had some important jobs to do after lunch. I made us some Mushroom Soup for lunch, with buttered bread, we then got on with the jobs list. First we had to empty out the bilges under the boatman's cabin, because due to the condensation over the winter, we had about an inch of water under the floor, this job we shared, and whilst down there Keith topped the gearbox oil, checked the pipe connections to the gearbox, and greased the propshaft bearing. To mop up the remainder of the water on the floor, I put some disposable nappies down to soak up the last remnants over the next few days hopefully, the grease which has mixed with the water is another matter, I will have to scrape that out once it has dried out.

With the jobs done, I then got on with making a Red Thai Curry with Chicken, we will be having it with rice later. The TV signal here is not very good, but we do have Film4, so it is not all bad. Tomorrow we will be heading up the 12 locks, so we may make an earlier start.

Chat soon x