Thursday 16th July
11 miles
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| Cranes are by all stop planks on the Bridgewater |
Another very bright day for our cruise into Manchester. Set of at 8.30 as we wanted to get to Manchester at a reasonable time in order to secure a mooring in Castlefield.
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| Cruising through Sale |
The canal is very wide here and it didn't take us long to reach the outskirts of Manchester passing through Sale which looked very vibrant and later Stretford. Waters Meeting is the junction and looked confusing on the approach as there are so many bridges. It was difficult to determine which was which as there were no names or numbers on them.
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| Passing Old Trafford |
Soon we were passing Old Trafford sending pictures to Shine, Julian and Julie (for mum) to see and got our first sight of the Manchester Ship Canal.
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| Entering Castlefield |
Sailed through a maze of apartments and bridges, trains and trams into Castlefield where we moored easily. Castlefield is so named because it is on the sight of a Roman fort and when the Victoriasns built the many bridges on the sight they put towers on their tops.
After lunch we explored Manchester stumbling across the cultural festival and marvelling at the many huge buildings the architecture was amazing. We shopped in the Arndale centre and window shopped past Selfridges, Harvey Nicholls and Armani.
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| Tea at the Teacup Kitchen |
Wandered around looking for a drink and stumbled across the Teacup Kitchen in the Northern Quarter where they served a multitude of tea and scrumptious cakes. Paul had a juice refresher drink (apple, orange, carrot and ginger) and toffee apple cake with clotted cream. I had Beijing Breakfast tea (served with a timer) and poopy seed and white chocolate cake, yummy but rich, brought half of it back to the boat in a box.
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| The Old Wellington |
Saw a very old pub The Old Wellington which has a varied and lively history. Built in the 17th C - the most recent being a bomb attack in 1996 and being moved 300 yards towards the Cathedral to accommodate the redevelopment of the city centre.
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| Manchester Cathedral |
The cathedral was large and vacuous - no pews, very dark stone and modern stained glass windows. There were angel sculptures at the top of each pillar playing various instruments known as the choir of angels. They only stood out because the instruments were painted gold.
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| Our mooring at night |
After a quick rest on the boat wandered to the Wharf a large pub a short walk from the boat. Beer and staff were exceptional. Went for a posh curry next door before stumbling back to bed. Area very quiet - we couldn't believe we were in Manchester.
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