Liverpool

Left Manchester on the 27^th May for Liverpool. As our due date for Liverpool was not until 9^th June that gave us plenty of time to enjoy the trip, mostly done in good weather, through some of the prettiest canal route we have travelled.   We spent a couple of days moored at Pennington Flash, a large nature reserve on a former coal mining site.  Some walking and birding planned. 

We then chugged on to Wigan, reached on Saturday 1^st June.  After walking into town to shop we left Wigan for Appley Bridge where we found a lovely mooring just short of the village and spent three days walking the meadows and woodlands before returning to the boat and ending the day with a BBQ.  The weather was glorious and one day we saw two foxes, two jays, a kingfisher and a deer.

It took a further three days to reach the outskirts of Liverpool.  Once you reach the edge of Aintree, bridge 9, Hancock’s swing bridge, access is restricted to those boats that had pre-booked a birth.  You are met by CRT employees who then control your movement for the last five hours of the journey that culminates in descending the four lock Stanley flight into the first of the Liverpool docks.  At this stage you are still two locks and 30 minutes from your mooring.  The dock at the bottom of the flight is overlooked by a massive brick warehouse built in the 19c to store tobacco shipped into Liverpool.  At the time it was the largest brick building in the world, and still is.

Leaving Stanley bottom lock you enter Stanley dock, then chug through Collingwood and Salisbury dock, passing Victoria clock tower before proceeding through the central docks to Princes dock, you then pass Pier Head and the Liver building, Mann Island lock and Canning dock and finally into Albert and Salthouse docks completing a journey that is probably one of the best on the system.

We stayed for three days, all that was available when we booked.  The days were full; we ferried the Mersey, visited numerous museums, two cathedrals, wandered the streets and strolled around the docks, themselves a tourist attraction in their own right with the largest collection of grade 1 listed buildings in the country.  We also took a Metro ride under the Mersey and visited Port Sunlight a model village on the Wirral Peninsula.  Built by the Lever brothers, (now Unilever), to accommodate workers in its soap factory.  Building commenced in 1888.  The name is derived from Lever brothers’ most popular brand of cleaning agent “Sunlight”.  Port Sunlight contains 900 grade 2 listed buildings.

The three days flew by, the weather held till the last day but our departure, controlled as our arrival by CRT staff, was in heavy rain.

Pics to follow.