This mooring really is in the middle of nowhere, with no roads anywhere nearby. When I took Macc out for his late night wee (and it was late, midnight, because of Eurovision) there wasn’t a single sound to be heard. Bridge 100 is the very thin one without proper parapets, and always looks quite delicate. This morning was very sunny and pretty warm.
We’d decided to have a non moving day, and instead ended up doing a bit of cleaning of the boat. Macc’s bedding also got washed and changed and was put out on the towpath to dry. When he was asleep I went out for a walk, and found that a boat the other side of the bridge had a little Border Terrier too. As I returned, Adrian was out with Macc and we all ended up walking down so the two dogs could meet. They spent some time charging up and down the towpath together.
Yesterday we had a duck which walked up the whole length of the roof and also explored the bow, and the lady from the boat in front told us she’s had a duck (possibly the same one) come into her boat. This afternoon, there wasn’t a fluttering sound and a duck arrived in the open side hatch.
She was probably trying to get away from a male. A family of ducklings has also been to visit.
The forecast rain hasn’t arrived (yet) and it’s been sunny enough for the batteries to get to 100 per cent.
0 miles, 0 locks. (54 miles, 115 locks)
Actually, almost all of the carrying strength of tis and similar bridges is in what you see here. This is counter intuitive as most people get worried about the lack of parapets, even when not going over the top. As a result there is often misplaced concern and CaRT criticism when they see large cracks in the above-the-arch brick or stone work. Perhaps the biggest danger of such cracks is the it allows certain people to push the brickwork into the canal. South of Leicester we saw quite a few with a gap right in the middle with a strong indication that it has not been prioritised for repair for some time. AIUI, the closure on the Middlewich branch after a vehicle strike is more to do with the risk of more bricks falling (or being thrown) into the water not the bridge falling down. There are some bridges eg Oxford canal, where the parapets were removed a long time ago to allow the farmer to take wider equipment eg sprayers, over the top.