With only a short distance to go today, we were in no great rush to get going. This was helped by Macc wanting to go out at about 6, after which I put him back in his crate and he went back to sleep; similarly, we also went back to sleep. Once on the move we made a brief stop at Heritage Marina to get an extra litre of engine oil, as the engine takes 9 and the gear box takes almost 2, which is more than ten in total! We soon arrived at Hall Green Stop Lock, which is where the Macclesfield Canal technically finishes. Beyond it is the Hall Green Branch of the Trent and Mersey, built by the T&M company so they had greater control of the traffic. That’s why the lock is double length (it used to be two locks) and there are two lock cottages. We stopped just a couple of bridges further on, a little before Red Bull Aqueduct. It’s a bit quieter here, and not next to the sewage works! You wouldn’t really know you were in Kidsgrove.
It was still only about 11am, so I did a couple of trips to the big Tesco down on the main road. This is one of the things about having a puppy: in the old days we’d have both gone and could have done it all in one go; but Macc can’t walk that far yet, and anyway having a dog on a lead takes up one carrying hand! After lunch we took Macc for a walk down the towpath. It’s still early days, but he’s usually pretty good on the way out and not so good on the way back! The good thing is that walking really wears him out.
We are still just in Cheshire here, although Tesco is in Staffordshire. We’ll be back in Staffs properly tomorrow.
2 miles, 1 lock. (18 miles, 13 locks)