On to liverpool

On To Liverpool A trip to Southport was undertaken in the rental car,way up market compared to Blackpool,apparently the tide goes out about 2-3 miles,saw it on the way in.

The rough water is the new tide rush,n in

The promenade has a good range of top end shops,and found a lolly shop with all the old classics,bought some aniseed balls and old English wine gums.

A small selection of lollies on offer

Contrasting styles on the promenade

Having booked to be at bridge 9 by 9am Friday we set off Monday afternoon. A bit gusty but nothing a novice couldn't handle. Made it to Parbold, parked for the night.

Side hatch view, houses an art gallery.

Tuesdays travel as far as Burscough involved meeting with a real Freak, approaching a swing bridge a plastic, rough as, was parked up, the wind had increased intensity and parking up to allow Leonie off had become more difficult. Anyway, next thing this Freak appears from the plastic, runs toward us screaming give us your rope, give us your key, I lost mine a couple of bridges back,ill do the bridges you just follow. He,s like screaming hysterical, barely understandable, narrow boats are a pain in the arse, he had one once, plastics are this and that and his girl friend was in side ironing. It was bout a 14 footer, would,nt had a candle let alone a power supply.We hung onto the key,he snuck through behind us. He got ahead then all of a sudden his plastic is powerless in mid stream. On the horn and hard reverse I

managed to stop about 2 feet short of smashing in his rear end. Just stopped he yells out.

Next swing bridge he gets off to help, girl friend drives through, he starts screaming out, stop on the other side, don’t leave me babe, she’s done that before. Oh Really. He then needlessly abused several fisherman, when he stopped we carried on. We moored north of Burscough with the wind increasing in strength.

Very Stylee,

I said to Leonie,"we may have rushed some decisions".

Wednesday the wind was howling, we waited until midday for some respite then decided we had to push on.By the time we parked near Scarisbrick it was Howling, got our pins in, just then settled down. A wide beam came past to fast and blew our front pin out of the ground, re-pinned but increasing wind and the pins looking shakey forced a move about half a mile.

There was bollards there but it was blowing that hard by the time Leonie jumped off and tried to wrap the rope the boat was in the middle of the canal and uncontrollable. Blown onto the "offside"we had no choice but to stay put.Leonie hadto walk to a road bridge to cross and come back through a paddock and blackberries.The wind increased strength to gale force in the night,it was like being in a plane with severe tubulance,all night.The gale had removed the top layer of a farmers cultivated paddock several miles away and it found its way inside the boat through the rear hatch and starboard hatch seals.Real fine like volcanic dust,everywhere,what a job cleaning up.

The dust is on its way.

Everywhere.

You looked.

Set off today,wind gusting and some of the swing bridges in the exposed areas made boat handling a real handful.But we made bridge 9 and are looking forward to getting into the docks of Liverpool.

Something the winds handy for..

Yeah,Na of course I paid for them.

Elaine & Paul visit Fireflynz.

Modern Technology,Leonie talks to Tait,our youngest son, working in PNG,Papua New Guinea.