26th June 2020 – The Harecastle Tunnel
We got up bright and early as we were booked on the 09:00 passage through the tunnel. You cannot just turn up at the moment, you need to book it. Its a long, single width and rather low tunnel under the Harecastle hill. It’s actually one of three tunnels bored through the hill, the first one having sunk is no longer navigaterable and the other one was for trains and is no longer in use. This tunnel is quite straight but you have the fun of going in a convoy of up to 8 boats, and in our group one boat was very slow. Unfortunately, when we got about half way, Arty had a bit of a fit. I have no idea what actually happened but she lurched to the left and I could not get her back before we hit the wall rather hard. Once we emerged from the other end, it was clear we had managed to damage the cratch cover, and torn a small hole in the plastic window. Hmph 😠
Anyway, I am sure it was all my fault, ironically I think part of it was the fact we had to go so slowly behind the other boats, and at low revs you have less ability to steer. In any case, I was not at all impressed with my performance. The tunnel itself was awesome and a real experience. Be warned, it is not for those who easily succumb to claustrophobia!!
Once we get to the other end of the tunnel, the locks arrive! And boy are there a lot of them! You can see from the map below, we have many, many locks to get through before we are going to turn off the Trent and Mersey canal onto the Shropshire Union. You can see the branch going off to the left at the top-left of the map – well that is where we are heading. This eventually joins the Shropshire Union canal proper, at around the junction to Llangollen.
We stopped just the other side of the tunnel and just after the branch which goes off to the Macclesfield canal, which we were going to go down, but it has run out of water.
Artful Dodger 